Wendy Melvoin - Discusses gear used on Purple Rain and shows exactly how the intro is played

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RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13929
edited May 2022 in Guitar
Interesting...

Wendy played Purple rain through a Boogie Mark 1, BOSS CE1 and her modified Rickenbacker 330 apparently.

Sadly she says she had 2 of the modified Rickenbacker and they were both stolen.



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  • p90foolp90fool Frets: 31368
    edited May 2022
    She's a good friend of a friend of mine, and her willingness to share knowledge and her friendly nature and humour made sitting in my local mid Wales cafe chatting guitars and stuff with her a couple of years ago seem not at all weird. 

    I'm now way more of a Wendy fan than I ever was of Prince. 
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • bluecatbluecat Frets: 560
    Excellent video -----the  mad cat -----what a beautiful guitar .
    I must use more chorus in the future.
    I was really impressed!!
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  • tone1tone1 Frets: 5112
    That sounded massive…. <3
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  • DrCorneliusDrCornelius Frets: 7069
    She’s awesome , I was obsessed with her and Lisa as a teenager and as a ‘grown up’ now I can really appreciate what a musical , tasteful player she is . Thanks for posting 
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  • LodiousLodious Frets: 1942
    I really liked the Eroica album Wendy and Lisa did in the late 80’s. Interesting to hear her speak, as I’ve always found her accent unusual when she sings, but hearing her speak, it all makes sense. Great musician, I’d imagine she’s had a pretty interesting slice of life.
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  • kinkin Frets: 1015
    That was wonderful, thanks for posting. 
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  • KittyfriskKittyfrisk Frets: 18382
    edited May 2022
    She’s awesome , I was obsessed with her and Lisa as a teenager and as a ‘grown up’ now I can really appreciate what a musical , tasteful player she is . Thanks for posting 
    I really can't imagine for a moment why as a young lad you'd be obsessed with her...
    Apart from her undoubted amazing talent as a musician of course :+1: 

    15 Wendy Melvoin Photoshoot Pics

    Wendy Melvoin back in the 80s  goddesses
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  • TeleMasterTeleMaster Frets: 10103
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…

    Yea. That whole rebranding Chinese pedals and selling them for 4x the price and denying it for days was the worst. Muppet. 
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  • duotoneduotone Frets: 971
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…

    Yea. That whole rebranding Chinese pedals and selling them for 4x the price and denying it for days was the worst. Muppet. 
    I must have missed this.

    But I did watch half of this video earlier on this morning & it was really excellent.  Very interesting & when she played the Purple Rain intro perfectly it was a definite ‘wow’ moment for me. Absolutely amazing what she brought to the song, Prince basically said ‘what can all of you musicians bring to this song idea?’ 
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  • TeleMasterTeleMaster Frets: 10103
    duotone said:
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…

    Yea. That whole rebranding Chinese pedals and selling them for 4x the price and denying it for days was the worst. Muppet. 
    I must have missed this.

    But I did watch half of this video earlier on this morning & it was really excellent.  Very interesting & when she played the Purple Rain intro perfectly it was a definite ‘wow’ moment for me. Absolutely amazing what she brought to the song, Prince basically said ‘what can all of you musicians bring to this song idea?’ 

    Google 'Vertex Pedals scandal'. They were buying cheap pedals, rehousing them, gooping them and then selling them as boutique pedals. Someone noticed the sound was the same as these other pedals and then someone degooped them and voila, the case was solved. The company denied it and denied until they didn't and apologised. 
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  • EricTheWearyEricTheWeary Frets: 16253
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…

    Yea. That whole rebranding Chinese pedals and selling them for 4x the price and denying it for days was the worst. Muppet. 
    There was something about him on here recently, a whole list of muppetry including a run in with Joe Bonamassa and relabelling cheap guitar cables. Pete Thorn and Brett Kingman  refuse to review his products. But I'll assume that Wendy has better things to do than look all that stuff up. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • TeleMasterTeleMaster Frets: 10103
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…

    Yea. That whole rebranding Chinese pedals and selling them for 4x the price and denying it for days was the worst. Muppet. 
    There was something about him on here recently, a whole list of muppetry including a run in with Joe Bonamassa and relabelling cheap guitar cables. Pete Thorn and Brett Kingman  refuse to review his products. But I'll assume that Wendy has better things to do than look all that stuff up. 
    Oh it's nothing on her. She seems super cool. It's just hard not to bring it up when you see him. 
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  • robertyroberty Frets: 10893
    Really enjoyed that thanks for sharing. What a great player and arranger
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  • KebabkidKebabkid Frets: 3301
    I saw Wendy and Lisa live a couple of times in the 80s. They were one of the finest bands I've ever seen and the first show in the UK was full of celebrities in the audience.

    I know Prince changed direction/sound over the years but it always struck me as interesting that the sound he had during their tenure went when they left, or were fired from his band, yet was still present with them afterwards. Maybe their contribution was bigger than we realise.

    'This is the Life' is a great song. Talented lady/ladies
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  • CavemanGroggCavemanGrogg Frets: 2955
    That had come up on my YouTube feed but it’s on the Vertex channel and he is such a knob so I’ve not watched it. Although if she talks about where to buy the best Welsh cakes then it will be worth a watch…

    Yea. That whole rebranding Chinese pedals and selling them for 4x the price and denying it for days was the worst. Muppet. 

    Sadly that describes most so called ''boutique pedals'' and pedal builders, the smart ones just buy the boards and house them themselves, instead buying pre housed pedals to strip down to the boards, before they get rehoused in the ''boutique pedal builder's'' branded housing and drowned in goop.  There was a big one around 2010 with a boutique wah pedal, that the artist tied in with it, but had no involvement with the building and supplying of pedals, was forced to get involved in, and even refund people out of his own pocket over.  It's even worse when you get to boutique fuzz pedals, boost, distortion ...., what you would call ''the standard pedals'' that the majority of guitarists have on their boards.
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  • euaneuan Frets: 1397
    When you say most boutique builders…can you name more than two examples here?
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  • RocknRollDaveRocknRollDave Frets: 6435
    Never heard her talk before. My favourite Prince eras are all later on in his career than the W&L years, but…come ON, IT’S PURPLE RAIN!
    She gives a much better interview here than the guy deserves, with his mumbling, closed questions.
    And, hardly surprising, I’ve been playing PR absolutely nowhere near correctly. Have you?

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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13929
    Never heard her talk before. My favourite Prince eras are all later on in his career than the W&L years, but…come ON, IT’S PURPLE RAIN!
    She gives a much better interview here than the guy deserves, with his mumbling, closed questions.
    And, hardly surprising, I’ve been playing PR absolutely nowhere near correctly. Have you?
    I pretty much had it down already but always found the change from the opening D chord to the G shape tricky, now I see that she plays it thumb over to get the low G second chord I'm all set


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  • brojanglesbrojangles Frets: 362
    Never heard her talk before. My favourite Prince eras are all later on in his career than the W&L years, but…come ON, IT’S PURPLE RAIN!
    She gives a much better interview here than the guy deserves, with his mumbling, closed questions.
    And, hardly surprising, I’ve been playing PR absolutely nowhere near correctly. Have you?
    I see I'm going to have to figure out what's going on with the add-9 looking business in the F chord. 
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