Celebrating Prince with his band The New Power Generation

“If your car goes into a skid, the instinct is usually to turn away from the direction your skidding or slam the breaks, but this doesn’t work and can only throw the car out of control completely. Instead, you should just veer straight and then continue veering slightly,” The New Power Generation’s music director and keyboardist Morris Hayes explains.
You may question why Morris Hayes, who played keyboards with Prince – the greatest recording artist of this generation – off and on for 20 years, is giving driving advice. Quite simply, it’s all in reference to the best advice Hayes has ever received from the modern day Mozart.
“There was a thing in music that Prince would always tell me, ‘Morris, it’s not a mistake until you stop’. If you mess up, but you’re acting normal, most people won’t even notice, but when you look like a deer in the headlights and you’re looking at your keyboard, you completely lose your way and then it’s a mistake. People can tell something is wrong,” he smiles while reminiscing.
“Prince would just tell me, ‘just relax, it’s not a mistake until you stop,’ and that was the thing that just really stuck with me. You can’t be a distraction, you just have to keep flowing, and if the keyboard breaks he just said to throw it on the ground, ‘I’ll buy you a new one’,” he laughs.
Prince was one of the world’s most accomplished musicians, writers and performers, with an astonishing work rate across the widest possible spectrum of pop music, so his advice was always cherished by Hayes and the other members of The New Power Generation since Prince handpicked them in 1990.
“The thing about the NPG is that Prince really wanted to have; he’s always had great musicians but I know that when he pieced that band together he was really trying to piece together a superstar group of players.”
From here, they went on together to create ‘Diamond & Pearls’ a record that sparked more hits on the Billboard charts than any other Prince album released since Purple Rain, and went on to work with Prince until 2013. In 2015, the New Power Generation reunited as Prince’s backing band for his final studio album Hit n Run Phase Two.

Now, The New Power Generation has officially reunited to perform a series of concerts under the banner, “Celebrating Prince” in order to give Prince’s fans throughout the U.S. and around the world the opportunity to take part in a musical tribute and celebration of Prince, who passed away unexpectedly on April 21, 2016, sending shock waves through the lives of many music lovers.
“It’s bittersweet,” Hayes admits, referring to the reunion of the NPG. “Our leader isn’t here any more, and Prince was an extraordinarilyy huge part of what we do and we never can replace him; we don’t want to, that’s not the point of this.
“We have an amazing singer in Kip Blackshire and we’ve got André Cymone and they have their own individual thing, but they understand this music and they get it and they are able to deliver it in a way that Prince would be proud of I believe, and I know I’m proud. We have to respect the music and we play the music like we know how to do it, stay focused and deliver it the way we know we should – and that’s what we do.”
Alongside Hayes, the tour sees the union of Kirk Johnson, Tony Mosley, Damon Dickson and Mono Neon, guitarist Homer O’Dell (from the Grammy-nominated Minneapolis band “Mint Condition”) and former NPG keyboard player and vocalist, Kip Blackshire. Special guests on lead vocals are Grammy-nominated Támar Davis and longtime Prince friend and bandmate, André Cymone (who was in Prince’s first acclaimed band, Grand Central) coming together to give Australian fans a chance to celebrate and say goodbye to one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, with Hayes crediting Prince’s huge repertoire of music to the ease of the process.
“What’s been really great about it is we have so much to draw from,” he smiles. “Prince was an incredible artist; he has so much music and there is so much contribution that he has made, so the only hard thing is to try and pick what we can do in the short amount of time that we have.
“With the NPG, there’s a lot of different versions of it, for me, I was in all of them pretty much, so I like to touch on things that are NPG but then at the same time, Prince had hits in the revolution and other points in his career, so we just want to make sure that we have a balance between the hits, and the music from our respective eras.
“What’s difficult is narrowing the songs down, there’s so many songs to pick from that we like to pick things that are interesting, maybe it’s something a little obscure, or something the fans haven’t heard in a while, maybe he never even played it. That’s kind of fun, because you get to hear something that you didn’t necessarily hear before. For us, it’s really cathartic for us to be able to do that for them and be able to bring that music back to the people that love it so much and that have supported us for so many years.”
Following their trip down under, Hayes reveals there are exciting things to come from The New Power Generation, with new music already in progress
“The NPG has a sound but I think we will stay true to our roots,” he says, “We have dedicated Prince fans that know what it is that we do, and I think we just have to be true to the music and true to ourselves and not try to be anything that we’re not, and just give our fans a fresh version of what we’re doing.
“I think that’s where a lot of artists probably go wrong, they forget the sound that made them who they are. We’re the NPG, we want to deliver that kind of style to them.”
Until they start releasing their new tracks, The New Power Generation’s sets will be an opportunity to hear Prince’s music played by the people who made it with him, and to laugh, dance and cry to some of his biggest hits one more time.
When & Where: 170 Russell, Melbourne – March 26 & Byron Bay Bluesfest 2018, Byron Bay – March 29 – April 2. Tickets available via www.bluesfesttouring.com.au.

Written by Talia Rinaldo

Header image by Peter Lodder