Prince Has 3 Unreleased Tracks Set to Auction for More Than $20,000
Prince has a lengthy and prolific career, and the famed musician has amassed quite a large backlog of unreleased material over the past four decades of recording.
According to The Wrap, Prince's long-time guitarist and collaborator Dez Dickerson is offering three cassette tape-recorded tracks from the 1970s for auction -- at the starting price of $20,000. The music, which includes “an early, acoustic version of ‘So Blue;' an early version of 'Gotta Broken Heart Again,' which would later appear on his seminal Dirty Mind album; and a very early, virtually unrecognizable version of ‘Sometimes It Snows in April,' (which would be featured on Parade); is part of a larger collection of works slated to be sold.
“Prince originally gave me the cassette in late 1978 because he wanted me to listen to a record he had recorded on side A (a female-fronted funk band whose name I don’t remember now)," said Dickerson regarding the previously-unheard music. "Sometime during the next year or so, I used the A side to record some scratch bass and guitar parts for songs I was going to be recording for a rock/power pop demo I was doing, recording over the original content (you can still hear a snippet of the funk record at the end of the side). On side B, Prince had his work versions of 6 songs, which I left intact for, at that time, unknown reasons (obviously, we now know it preserved a piece of musical history).”
Dickerson describes the unreleased tracks are filled with “bouncy, upbeat choruses and risque lyrics,” and one that “features heavy guitar distortion and a chorus that includes very candid sexual pleas from Prince.” All trademarks of early Prince.
As for the rest of the collection set for auction, Prince fans will have a chance to snag clothing worn by the entertainer himself, a 1959 acoustic guitar used during his earlier days, his former wife's [Mayte Garcia] diamond engagement ring and the china used during his wedding. However, the full collection is said to start bidding with an additional zero or two in the asking price.