Cory Wong has confirmed that he’s recorded a session at Paisley Park, the former studio complex of fellow Minneapolis funk maven Prince.
In an Instagram post, Wong can be seen playing at Paisley with his regular band, which includes bassist and former Prince sideman Sonny T. What’s more, he’s wielding one of Prince’s iconic Cloud guitars, replicas of which were previously on sale at the Official Prince Store.
The Cloud guitar has been the subject of a trademark dispute, with Dave Rusan, who designed the original and trademarked it in 2018, saying that he received a letter from Prince’s estate in 2019 ordering him to give it up.
Commenting on his experience of playing the Cloud guitar, Wong said on Instagram: “It’s really nice but it needed a setup”.
Wong discussed how Prince’s playing has influenced him with Total Guitar back in 2019, explaining: “Prince has certain ways that he does a lot of accents on the 'a'. So you get into the instincts of the artists that you're really into or trying to emulate and then it kind of informs your decisions. So that's a fun thing that I've just constantly worked on.”
The trailer for the Paisley Park Session indicates that Wong will be playing plenty of his own material, but we’re hoping for a few Prince-related surprises in there, too (some of the horn licks in the preview clip definitely have a ‘purple’ quality to them).
The session will premiere on Mandolin on Thursday 28 October at 8.00pm ET. A standard ticket costs $20, and there’s also a VIP option, which adds a pre-show meet and greet with Cory Wong, for $30.
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