Bloomington musician recalls encounters with Prince

Posted on April 23, 2016

By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – A local musician who said he met Prince several times over the years found the now-late rock star to be a regular guy.

PODCAST: Listen to Dan Swaney’s interview with Beck on WJBC.

“I felt so comfortable with him and I was a little bit in awe but I didn’t let it show,” Joe Beck recalled.

Beck told WJBC’s Dan Swaney he got backstage to a Prince concert in Rockford years ago and he talked to him for about a half hour and later caught up with him outside his dressing room door in Iowa in hopes of getting to join his band.

He said Prince refused his demo tape of his drum work saying his record label wouldn’t let him.

“(Prince) said, ‘Man I can’t take this,’ and slid it back to me,” Beck said. “But I had such a great conversation with him, I was satisfied, I was happy.”

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].

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