Hailing from the Hawaiian Islands, Paul Prince's solo guitar style reflects Hawaiian, African and Impressionism influences. Listeners are drawn into Paul's harmonic inventiveness, melodic richness, and emotional connection to the music.
Polynesian music and Slack Key guitar receive complex, sweet, melodic treatment in Prince's vibrant solo pieces. The title track of Ocean Bells exemplifies Prince's way of extending harmelodic techniques and polyrhythmic counterpoint into a perfect storm of sound. No looping or overdubbing is used. On his own, Prince achieves a one man Polynesian bell orchestra sound of unique virtuosity.
Prince's African focus centers on the music of Zimbabwe. He has collaborated with some of the finest Zimbabwean mbira players on the scene today including Bezil Makombe, vocal/mbira diva Ambuya Beauler Dyoko, Cosmas Magaya and Musekiwa Chingodza. Besides his 6 and 12 string acoustic instruments, Prince plays a self-designed 24 string harp. His involvement with the music of West Africa led him to being a featured artist on "Afropop Worldwide".
Prince as toured the West Coast and Canada as acoustic guitarist with legendary Zimbabwean singer Thomas Mapfumo. In 1999 Paul and the band recorded a now classic acoustic guitar driven version of Mapfumo's hit "Chamunorwa".
Some of Paul's performance highlights include: The 1998 WOMAD USA Festical; the Edmonton Folk Festival (Canada); Slim's in San Francisco; Folklife; The Palms and Palookaville in Santa Cruz; The Sierra Nevada World World Music Festival (playing lead guitar with Thomas Mapfumo and The Blacks Unlimited); and prominent bookings at numerous indoor and outdoor festivals in the Pacific Northwest.
Stay tuned for new releases and Shows! photo:artlightphotography.com