Biography
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Born
7 June 1958
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Born In
Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States
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Died
21 April 2016 (aged 57)
3rdEyeGirl (usually stylized as 3RDEYEGIRL) is an all-girl band / power trio assembled by Prince between November and December 2012.
The bandname first appeared on 31 December 2012 with the streaming of a 3:22 studio rehearsal video of Bambi on YouTube by an entity called "3rdEyeGirl" and describing itself as International art thief.
Prince first denied being linked with 3rdEyeGirl, but it soon appeared that the entity was under his control as a Twitter account streaming official Prince material was launched in the first days of January 2013, shortly followed by a website, 3rdEyeGirl.com, selling official material (linked with a paypal account belonging to NPG Records Inc.).
Prince recruited Hannah Ford in September 2012 as a guest drummer for the "Welcome 2 Chicago" three show-residency, after seeing videos of her performing on line. Soon after she appeared as lead drummer of The NPG for Prince's performance of Rock And Roll Love Affair on Jimmy Kimmel Live! show on 23 October 2012 as well as in the video for that song.
Asked by Prince to look for a female guitarist, Ford together with her husband Joshua Welton scouted on line and found Donna Grantis via her videos on Youtube in late November. She was auditioned one week later at Paisley Park Studios and subsequently recruited in December 2012. Bassist Ida Nielsen had been performing with The NPG since October 2010, and the only member of the trio to have previous experience playing for Prince as bassist of The NPG.
Shortly after Grantis came on board, the band started rehearsals for the Live Out Loud Tour and started to recorded new material with Prince at Paisley Park Studios. A 3rdEyeGirl featuring Prince album release, Plectrumelectrum, was announced to be released in 'early 2014', but did not come out until late September of that year.
At times 3rdEyeGirl acted as a replacement for The NPG, backing up Prince at shows (albeit always billed as Prince with 3rdEyeGirl). but Prince also continued to play live shows and to release music with The NPG, on most occasions with Ford on drums, Grantis on guitar and Ida Nielsen, alternating on (extra) guitar and bass, depending if there is another bass player, since 2014 usually Andrew Gouché.
Members: Prince, Hannah ''Ford'' Welton, Ida Nielsen, Donna Grantis.
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