Prince: 50 Essential Bootlegs

Prince spent his entire life recording music and playing live music. As well as the monumental amount of music he recorded in the studio, he also found time to perform a mind boggling amount of live shows. Literally thousands of shows were performed during his 37 year career, and luckily for his fans many of them were recorded in one way or another. But, this poses a huge problem... With so many shows recorded, and lot of those shows recorded by several different people using different sources and equipment, were on earth do you start?? Whether you are a life-long collector with thousands of bootlegs, or just a fan looking for critical or landmark live shows, this book is absolutely perfect. Hamish has somehow managed to distill 37 years worth of live shows into a list of 50 essential shows. 'Greatest' lists are always subjective, and this is NOT a top 50 list. It's deeper than that. The importance of a show is also weighted, and that makes for some interesting reading. This has been written with a passion, not just for Prince's music, but for music as a whole. Information is rich and detailed and I'm looking forward to revisiting some old boots and discovering one's I've passed over.

Any serious Prince fan knows that it's all about the bootlegs. Not just of his big arena shows, but also the infamous aftershows that were the stuff of legend even before Prince died. But where to start? Here is where. From the early days when Prince was still pretty much an underground artist, through peak period to his very last shows weeks before his death, Hamish Whitta brings you reviews of them all where you can read and imagine being there yourself. You might even be lucky enough to listen along with the intelligent, impassioned descriptions of the shows!

Essential reading for any Prince fan with an interest in the 'other' side of his career: the bootlegs! Listing many classic recordings that most serious collectors will be familiar with, this book breaks down the set list, atmosphere, performance and historical importance of these 50 recordings. A reference book, this will be a book I will dip into overtime I listen to any of these shows. If you love Prince and love Prince bootlegs, this book is for you!

Fantastic book Hamish. As a Prince fan for (ooh, that many) years, I have been collecting bootlegs for some time now and this book is a welcome retrospective for me and I will be revisiting these, so I can listen along as I read. And Hamish, if you do read this review, hoping the C&D doesn't come your way 😖

A must for any Prince fan. Meticulously research and full of revealing insights. Great for discovering the world of Prince bootlegs.

A really interesting book. I ended up spending almost a week tracking all the bootlegs down!!

My daughter loves prince good buy

This is a very disappointing book. One of those late night purchases where one should have researched the book a little before adding to cart. My bad. Lesson learnt. Firstly, it should be more accurately titled Essential Live Bootlegs. As that’s what it is. It’s not a critical appraisal of some of the unreleased masterpieces that Prince recorded. Secondly it’s written in rather an informal manner, in which there is very little critical appraisal. Some people might also be a little put out by the fact that it’s promoting material for sale that has no commercial connection to Prince and his heirs. Certain types of Prince fans might love it though - but don’t be like me, thoroughly understand what type of book you are purchasing before clicking buy! It would be fine as a website blog though. But £16 for it feels a bit like I’ve been had.

Great stuff.Agree with this.

Great book with most of Prince greatest concerts. Of course its Just an opinion but a great one!