Musician Cobi recently had acclaimed keyboardist Morris Hayes as a livestream interview guest on his YouTube channel, and the three-hours+ chat covers some incredible memories of his esteemed career so far, including the experience of his 20 years working with Prince as Musical Director and band member – including the extremely high standards the late legend had when it came to recording and the people he hired on the road.
There's no doubt Hayes had immense respect for his former boss. But he's candid about the situations he saw in his two decades with Prince. "There were about four jobs with Prince that I wouldn't want for my worst energy," Hayes reflected on rumours the late legend was especially hard on front-of-house hirings. "And one of them is sound guy, one of them is security – they have no life because he's up all the time and if he's up, they'd be up. So we have the sound guy, the security and we have the accountants. I would not want to be one of the accountants and I wouldn't want to be one of the lawyers. Those jobs, like the engineers… he'd go through those people. Sound people, we just went through, man. And it's because Prince knew enough to really be dangerous – and he knew too much. So he would micromanage those things.
