On the fourth anniversary of his death, CBS is set to air a Prince tribute concert produced by the Grammys, Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis. Artists that will pay tribute to the purple one include John Legend, Foo Fighters, Alicia Keys, Mavis Staples and his band, The Revolution. Jimmy Jam joined The Chad Hartman Show today to talk about the special.
Harris says that the show has been two years in the making. He said that for Terry Lewis, Shiela E. and him to be the Musical Directors of the show, the feeling needed to be authentic.
"We wanted it to be authentic to the feel of Prince and wanted people to that had worked with him on, and we immediately signed on and said, 'Absolutely, we'd love to be a part of it," Harris said. "It was funny before we even started trying to kind of book guests or people we thought would be appropriate because the rumors had been out for a while. We started getting calls from people who wanted to be apart of it."
With all of the artists who wanted to be in the show, figuring out which artist would play which song was a challenge. Harris said that was tasked to Shiela E., and she ran with it.
"[One of] the most interesting aspects of it was when people wanted to all do the same songs," Harris said. "There are certain songs that everybody wanted. So the sorting out of that I will say that Sheila did a really great job of tailoring arrangements for people and the way that they needed to be to make sure that everybody felt comfortable. So that was kind of the logistics of putting it together. It Was just picking the right songs and trying to make sure that everybody felt comfortable."
"We were able to put Mya Rudolph, who hosts the show, with the Revolution, which we called 'Princess and the Revolution' because she has a band called 'Princess' that does Prince songs, " Harris continued. "So that was kind of cool. That was a thrill for both of them to do. But then to get Mavis Staples, for instance, to sing 'Purple Rain', and Mavis is Prince's favorite. So we thought, in our back of our minds, it was always what would Prince wanted here And what would he like to see? And we thought that was a great thing."
Harris says that four years after Prince's death, he says the distance has made him realize what Prince meant to the world. He says he'll always remember Prince as a musical genius.
"Somebody said more eloquent than me actually said something that resonated with me and they just said, 'As good as you remember him, he was better."