In the introduction to their new book, Feel My Big Guitar: Prince and the Sound He Helped Create (the first installment of a two-volume series), editors Judson L. Jeffries, Shannon M. Cochran, and Molly Reinhoudt define the Artist as "unquestionably a political animal." As unquenchable creativity seemed to fuel Prince above all else, the editors' statement may be questionable, but there's no question that much of their book is political. Most of its essays tend to frame Prince's life and music through a lens that puts race front and center, which is valuable as it shows how racism helped determine the verging fortunes of Prince and Rick James, an artist with whom he was often compared early in his career, or played a major role in the incessant comparisons with Jimi Hendrix, whose guitar technique, writer Ignatius Calabria quite effectively demonstrates, was very different from Prince's. Matters of gender come to the fore in Jude De Lima's exploration of Prince's songwriting techniques, while Fred Mark Shaheen's piece on Joni Mitchell's influence helps clarify one of the curiouser tributaries of Prince lore. If an overarching academic tone prevents Feel My Big Guitar from being the funnest book about one of pop's most gloriously fun artists, editor Jeffries's playful-bordering-on-disrespectful interview with early collaborator Gayle Chapman at least helps clean the palette midway through the book and Antonio Garfias's goofy personal essay about giggling over Prince's sexual lyrics ends the book on a similarly light note. However, the inclusion of part two of a two-part interview with producer Pepé Willie in the first volume of a two-part book series seems like a pretty major editorial blunder. Considering that Feel My Big Guitar is only 190 pages long, I'm not sure why it even had to be broken up into two volumes.
