I was trying to talk my sawyer into giving me a deal on some Black Walnut. As we were talking about the log’s he’s expecting, I asked him if any of them were ‘Claro’ Walnut. He kind of grinned and explained to me that ‘Claro’ Walnut is more of a marketing term and is not a true subspecies of walnut. He went on to say Claro Walnut is just Black Walnut grown on the west coast/northwest and this environment often produces more color in the wood than Black Walnut grown elsewhere. Is this true? I can find no reference to any subspecies of Claro Walnut so I have to go with what he’s telling me unless any of you can shed further light on this.
Thanks….Jeff
Replies
Jeff,
Claro walnut is from west coast walnut orchard trees that are English walnut stock grafted onto American walnut rootstock. The area of the trunk immediately above the graft will often have interesting grain and color. So claro walnut isn't a species, it is a result of the grafting. I wouldn't be surprised to find that some wood sellers might label any walnut with interesting grain or color "claro" even if the wood wasn't from a grafted tree.
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
John,
If Claro Walnut is English Walnut grafted into American Walnut, why is it only from the west coast? If I understand you correctly, if I have an American Walnut and an English walnut and I graft them together and plant them in Indiana, volah, I will have Claro Walnut?
Sure, you could do it anywhere the tree would grow. It is just that the walnut industry, which needs the trees for the nuts is in the west. Claro walnut is just a by product of growing the grafted trees for the nuts.
John W.
Man, how dumb do I feel....I've been at it for 7 years and I didn't know that........................check please!
I just have an ability to recall endless amounts of wood related trivia, the facts behind the origin of claro walnut aren't that well known.
John W.
I've grafted English Walnut onto Black Walnut trees in the Texas Hill Country, and got bupcus in the way of production. Two or three nuts each year that never filled out. Black Walnut trees in this part of the state also rarely are complete logs when they are cut down. The heart wood is gone and you are left with a hollow tree. And no Keebler Elves. Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
My father used to take care of a small English Walnut orchard and a couple of equally small Black Walnut orchards in northwestern Oregon as part of his duties managing the "farm" land belonging to a rural private parochial high school where he was also the industrial arts teacher. He also has some formal training in horticulture and grafting.
Anyway, he told me that the point of grafting English Walnut onto Black Walnut for orchards was that the Black Walnut has a significantly better root system than the English Walnut has.
I remember when the Black Walnut orchards were cleared because the trees were old and apparently not commercially viable any longer. Our huge back porch was bursting at the seems with Black Walnut firewood. Looking back on it I can almost cry because I remember seeing some of it had figure. But I was just a kid at the time and wasn't really interested in wood yet.
Edited 5/10/2007 12:17 am by Kevin
KevinI don't know if the graft wood I had was from a bad variety unsuitable for Texas or if English Walnut in general is not suitable for Texas. Black Walnut is an amazing wood that has some very interesting characteristics and figure. Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
I was trained as a plant pathologist in California, where we have LOTS of walnut orchards. Virtually all of the commercially grown walnut trees in California (and I presume elsewhere in the US) are grown on the black walnut rootstock because of it's resistance to the Oak Root Fungus, (Armillariella melea), also known as the "honey mushroom".
Jon
Thanks for the info, Jon. I figured someone here would know more about it.
Being out in the "brakes" and "bottoms" of central Texas surveying for 30+ years, I've seen some huge native Black Walnut trees. A lot of farmers and ranchers have cut these down for pasturage or construction and let them lay. I bought about 100 ft of native walnut about 10 years ago, and it was absolutey the most dense and tight grained stuff I've ever seen. Cut at a local mill here. $.50 a foot. Got a bunch of spalted Pecan too.
TomThat's good to know. My folks' place is near Sattler and Canyon Lake on the Guadalupe river. I remember we had to cut down one black walnut tree for construction, and my uncle asked my dad to save the tree for him. It was not hollow, and he got some great looking wood out of it. As I recall, he made several clocks and a Shaker tilt top table. Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
Grafting is probably done because english root stocks are less vigorous, stunted or unable to prosper in comparison. The nuts may be larger and in higher numbers, better disease resistance, more compatible with localized environments. Growth rate to fruiting in this case. Sexual maturityGrafting scions (upper Part) to a root stock from a certain part of the country gives one thousands of years of evolution to the climate and soils. With the trunk, foliage and fruits of the compatible upper specimen. Ron
Right. In fact, almost all orchard fruit trees in this country today are grafted. In my peach and pear orchard, the graft union is clearly visable a few inches above ground level. Grafting is an art, and is done not only for local adaptability, but also for dwarfing, fruit quality, and disease/insect resistance.An interesting side note is the fact that most French grapevines are grafted onto wild Texas root stock, In fact, Texas roots literally saved the French wine industry, because the wild stock is highly resistant to the Phylloxera root louse that was wiping out the French vinyards a hundred years or so ago.Joe
Mister Joe, I'm in the plant biz but separated from the fruit end. Are most peaches grafted, and if so, onto what? I once rooted about a thousand peaches for a friend of mine in the peach bidness. What would that be; about five acres worth? Anyway, he was overjoyed with the results of them, wanted me to do more, but I just didn't have the time and space at the right time.
I am an amateur gardner/orchardman, and so rely mostly on A&M to advise me as to varietals for this region. However, the short answer is that for the most part, peaches are grafted onto peach rootstocks that meet specific needs. The following is what A&M has to say about it:
"Your choice of rootstock depends on weather and soil conditions at your orchard site. These rootstocks differ in five main traits:
Resistance to rootknot nematodes.
Tolerance to calcareous soil conditions.
Tolerance to water-logged soil conditions.
Cold hardiness.
Tolerance to peach tree short life (PTSL) associated with the ring nematode
Amazing how they've figured all that out. I don't know where you're located. In this area, extreme southern NJ, we have very light acidic soils. I've no clue which of these "issues" they're fighting. I DO know the peach industry isn't so lucrative anymore. Peaches seem to grow alright, albeit they have a freeze out on the blooms about one of every three years.
I have access to peach wood, but've never taken advantage of it. Prolly the biggest stuff you could harvest would be 6" at the widest diameter.
It is remarkable, but remember that much of the modern science of statistics was developed in the land grant universities for agricultural testing. We now enjoy the results of decades of statictically valid testing in test plots all over the country.
I am in north Texas, near Dallas, which is why I rely on A&M.
Joe
Okay Joe. I'll admit it. I'm a dummy by nature. You mentioned A&M before and I failed to make the connection. Ever been to Corsicana? There's a place down there what makes fruitcake (ripleys believe it or not) that is out of this world.
Indeed, I have been to Corsicana, and I know the fruitcake company. As it happens, a friend of mine had an unfortunate marriage to the fruitcake heir -- but they do make good cake without a doubt.
Joe
an unfortunate marriage to the fruitcake heir ..........
LMFAO. Sorry, it just sounds so funny.
No further comment...
J
JoeWhere do you live? My undergrad degree is in Horticulture from A&M. Dr. Benton Storey and Dr. Dan Hanna were two of my favorite profs at A&M. Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
I live in a shrinking little unincorporated island of rural Texas in NE Dallas County. I know the names you mentioned, but don't know the men. Most of my contact is through the extension service, and, of course, the internet. As we are active in 4-H, we know the local and regional extension people quite well.
Joe
Edited 5/10/2007 5:08 pm ET by Joe Sullivan
That's great. Ag is still a great way to teach kids and for adults to learn about life. The Ag Extension in Texas is pretty good--poor folks don't make near enough, though. Tom"Notice that at no time do my fingers leave my hand"
Joe & All,
Peach rootstocks in northern climates is predominantly Bailey or Lovell though some new dwarfing ones are on the horizon. My brother worked in peach breeding at Michigan State And Cornell-Geneva. In Iowa it is common to find farmsteads with peach trees that occassionally produce some crop of very good white/greenish skin peaches the size of walnuts. They're always so proud of them. Those trees are the top growth of one of the rootstocks which originally had a good variety of peach grafted onto it. The top then died down to the ground leaving the rootstock top to grow back.
I have had reasonable success growing peaches in Iowa. We were located on a high hill on a very light sandy soil that dried out early in the fall. The predominate problem with peaches in the northern climates is rapid change in temperature in the fall before the trees have gone dormant. This kills the crotch wood which then rots. The reason most of the northern peaches are grown in MI & NY is that the Great Lakes moderate the rate at which the air temperature changes.
Actual low temperatures in the winter down to the low minus 20's will kill the fruit buds but generally not damage the trees. While 30 degrees will at full bloom will take off nearly all of the current year's crop. Then 1 week after petal fall mid 20's will not hurt the crop.
But then this post probably needs to be on "Over the Fence" forum.
I would think peach wood would be unattractive for milling due to the wide soft growth rings.
Jim
I agree about the peach wood. Awfully soft, big rings.
Here the temperature problem is not too bad, but late frosts are a constant problem. The other problem is borers.
J
Love to hear that kind of use, instead of draggin'em over to a pile and burnin'em. The guy that runs one of the local mills here paneled his entire house in spalted Pecan. Reds, oranges, even blues and greens in the spalting.
The grafting would probably work in Indiana, and may well have been done. As you probably know (and as I know from years of 4-H forestry as a child in Indiana), walnuts are a significant native hardwood in Indiana. Walnuts have a harder time in many of the soils of Texas, btw.What probably happened is that California nut growers pioneered the grafted stock a century or so ago, and therefore were the first to have orchards that passed maturity and were culled. When they saw the fine figure, someone named it and it became a sort of de facto unregistered trademark.So, you could probably grow Claro in Indiana, but you'd have to live a heck of a long time to benefit from it.Joe
Joe,
With the price of Claro, might be a good investment for my kids down the road?
Hard to say. In a good case, if all went well with wind and weather and the soils where you live, it could turn out well, but that is a long-term bet. The California nut growers got their Claro as an unexpected side benefit to an otherwise profitable enteririse.
Joe
One of the biggest walnut producers in northern California is a raw material supplier for my company (ground-up walnut shell). I was in Sacramento visiting them and toured the plant and orchards. According to them, selling the trunks is a excellent side business, but has its down side. They have had to put sound sensors all over the orchards because of "tree rustling". If a chainsaw starts up almost any where in the orchards sensors send a signal, and security checks out the location. They where losing very valuable producing trees because "rustlers would pull up, whack off the tops and roots and be gone in a relatively short time. They were losing trees that would produce for 20 more years and lose big bucks from the lumber sales.
I had never heard of "tree rustlers " before.
Tree rustlers are all too common in the hardwood belt. We know of a guy in the midwest who had a river island with a lot of wild walnut. One cold winter when the ice was in, someone relieved him of most of it. There are lots of stories like that.
Joe
Very late to this thread and am not at all surprised at the misinformation being offered. It's not surprising since there are so many "common names" for types of wood that have nothing to do with the species of wood. Many of these "common names" were given to trees found in the New World which looked in some way like a tree familiar to those coming from the Old World. Some visible characteristic of a New World tree, the bark, the leaf structure, the shape of the canopy or the fruit or nut was similar to an Old World tree so people called the New World tree by some Old World name. Claro is a spanish word - and not surprising since they set up missions all over the west coast, the "common name" was given to both of two species of walnut found in North America , on the west coast - Juglans hindsii and Juglans californica. These are distinct species of the family Juglanaceae (black walnut) and have nothing to do with the grafting of two species of walnut.
(source: see attached Center for Wood Anatomy Research, USDA. Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory - technology transfer fact sheet)If you want to really get nailed by a "common name" - try and find the specific gravity of "english sycamore" - which isn't a sycamore at all but a species of acer - (maple). Then there's "lacewood" which can be almost anything with medullary rays which show up nicely in quarter sawn lumber. Quarter sawn "american sycamore" can be really "lacey".charlie b
google is a useful search engine
http://www.alltheweb.com is another search engine
Thanks Charlie. THAT is what I was looking for. I appreciate the information and source....Jeff
No problem. Jim Baker, of Baker Hardwoods, is especially fond of Claro Walnut, and has some amazing, and VERY expensive, LARGE slabs of Claro Walnut crotch. And this guy knows his trees.http://www.bakerhardwoods.com/He's By Appointment Only and not fond of Looky Looz. If he opens his warehouse for you be prepared to drop some bucks cause the stuff he has is not - well let's just say - "inexpensive". He's got a good sized bandsaw mill and, if you catch him on a nice day, will cut up to your specs.And when it comes time to total up your purchase and you're in the office, look closely at the desk. You'll be surprised that it has blues and purples in it - very tight grained - and is walnut - "perisan walnut" that is. Stuffs as hard a "rock maple" and maybe even heavier. Takes a mirror finish - without ANY "finish".And while on Claro Walnut, an arborist / sawyer / woodworker friend had to relocate his business. He had a moving sale with obscenely low prices on some his vast stash of nice wood,
much of which was slabs of Claro - 6/4 up to 12/4 - much of it "crotch" (with some amazing figure - ever seen "feather grain"?)
The weekend Moving Sale made some chair makers and instrument makers VERY happy. Hell, made me happy as hell, though the bank account wasn't pleased. But how could I pass up Bartlett Pear - en boule - for $200 and walnut crotches for $40 to $60?I don't know what the rules are about posting photos but if you like Claro Walnut - the real stuff - air dried ...charlie b
Thanks again Charlie. Yes, I've been to that website and love it. Seems like I'm going to have to move to CA to acquire Claro Walnut at prices I am willing to afford. To drive down there from Washington state where I now live, adds a minimum of three hundred dollars to the price of anything I would buy down there. I don't mind the drive, just the cost of the gas. I have a 14 foot tandem axle trailer I use to haul my treasures back with. I just bought 500 board feet of 'Black Walnut' from a guy, who was selling it for someone else yada yada, but it has the coloration of the walnut you're showing in the ClaroA6.jpg photo. All chocolate and purple swirls. ALL OF IT. It's very beautiful and I love it, am very glad I bought it. I bought it for about $1.70/board foot, what a deal eh?! I'd like to get a bunch more, but it's hard to find up here. Machines very nicely too. Maybe I could move to southern Oregon and make that work?!
Jeff: Go to "Golby Walnut" Albany Or. He has more walnut than anybody on the West Coast. Lee
Thanks Lee2, I've talked with those folks on the phone and am planning a trip down to their location. Looking forward to it even if I don't buy anything....
Jeff
Jeff: I've made a couple of trips from Bellevue and have found some great slabs etc, They ary not cheap but are unique and some are fabulos. His best buy however is No. one common. If he likes you he'll show you around annd it well worth it. Lee
Thanks Lee, that helps me justify the decision to go. I actually talked on the phone for some time with those folks, don't remember exactly who it was, but I was impressed with how well I was treated. I've no doubt I'll pickup some material. Black Walnut is my favorite wood, and I've put a fair amount of effort into getting setup to do veneers, in fact today I picked up my upgraded bandsaw for slicing veneers. The saw I had was great, but only had 8" of resaw height. I needed more. I'm also very interested in slab tables with natural edges. When I see beautiful wood, the wallet comes out, can't help it....;-)
Edited 6/23/2007 3:41 am by jeff100
Gary also has lots of walnut veneer. Lee
I am second generation walnut logger just a few years into the business but I do have 2 cents to share from my experience. There is a species of walnut that grows here in the NW. Juglans Hindsii is the scientific name. I do not know how it came to be here but it is used as graft stock for English Walnuts in orchards. California is the home of many walnut orchards so many of the logs from there are harvested from grafted stock.
Up in Oregon were we buy our logs we are taking out one tree at a time. They are often dying trees or backyard trees so they are much larger than the ones grown in the hardwood forests of the east. We rarely buy English logs because they are problematic. I cannot tell you that every log we buy is a Juglans Hindsii but they are much larger than 36" through and we have a different method of drying than large milling operations in the east. In my opinion it is the drying process that makes the color. Air drying, DH kiln, and large trees I'm sure contribute to the color.
I use the term Claro to describe our walnut just so people understand we are not selling the commodity, steam dried eastern Walnut. It seems hard to find information on the Western species Juglans Hindsii. Most of the information seems to be a part of a dealer’s website so I don't necessarily trust it as unbiased research.
thanks, Sara
Sara,
You are misusing the term claro walnut by calling the wood from ungrafted juglans hindsii by that term. You are just creating confusion and giving your customers misinformation by calling the wood you sell "claro".
You are to be commended for making an effort to create a much better product than commercially processed black walnut, but calling the wood something it isn't, when there are perfectly good accurate names for it, seems to work against what you are doing.
If you do a Google search for juglans hindsii you will find that there is quite a bit of unbiased accurate information on the tree available from agricultural research web sites.
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
John,
You are right about finding plenty of information on the scientific name. My mistake, I meant finding the definition to Claro. Where did you find out that Claro Walnut is grafted Juglans Hindsii? I have never heard that. It is my understanding that Claro is spanish for Clear. So how does that fit into things? I did Google for Claro Walnut Definition and find that it is very similar to how people cross up fiddleback, curly, flamed, tiger or vertical grain and quartersawn. It seems as if 95% of the people saying to use or sell Claro are misusing the term if it is truely only from a grafted tree. I am still learning and am just trying to figure out all the language. Misleading people is the very last thing I am trying to do. However there is a definite color about the Juglans Hindsii sometimes that is very unique and beautiful. Sara
Sara,
I am basing my definition on older texts, including older guinsmiths manuals, that aren't available on the internet. These older texts were generally written by experienced craftsmen who were very precise in their descriptions of materials.
I did find this modern reference, that backs my point of view, from Woodfinder a source that is usually reliable:
DESCRIPTION: "Claro" is a Spanish word meaning clear or bright, and the common name "claro walnut" is usually used to refer to the wood cut from the lower bole (stump) of orchard walnut trees, especially on the West coast of the US. These trees are a mixture of species, created by grafting an English walnut (Juglans regia) scion to a rootstock of one of our native walnut species -- either black walnut (Juglans nigra) or California walnut (Juglans hindsii). The wood near the graft tends to be variegated in color, with beautiful marble-like, dark brown and tan swirls in the figure. It is a favorite wood for making gunstocks. There is some confusion about the term "claro", since the lumber trade sometimes uses it to describe the wood of ordinary California walnut, which is more like black walnut, rather than the marbled variety cut from orchard trees. Claro walnut has working properties similar to black walnut. It works well with hand and power tools, has good strength and bending properties, and takes finishes well. It is used mainly for high-quality furniture and gunstocks.
In my experience, many wood sellers don't take the time or interest in properly identifying the wood they sell, and more than a few sadly are quite open to calling the wood in their stacks whatever will get them the best price.
John W.
Lets not forget Juglans cinerea aka white walnut best known as Butternut. A much under utilized wood in my opinion.Ron
Ron:
We have butternut in our woods, but have never cut any or even considered it. What are its working characteristics?
Joe
Joe, I believe they call it "poor mans walnut"
Its lighter in color and I believe from what I have heard it works like Juglans nigra, I have never used it but its been on my mind to try it.It supposedly will stain well. I'm sure others will add their experiences with it.I did visit a relatives home in Ohio, we picked up some of their friends and I got the tour of their home, the kitchen was in butternut, beautiful color. I still remember it 20 years later. I never used west coast walnut, except clairo walnut veneer.Ron
It is a wonderful wood to work. Absolutely easy to machine and work by hand, although a little "fuzzy" at times. Price in the northeast is going up due to a blight that is killing off some of the trees. Prognosis does not look good from what I have read. Try it you will like it.Donkey
Joe,
Butternut, or white walnut is a very pleasant wood to work. It does not have the pungent aroma of black walnut, that some find irritating. It is a softer wood than black walnut, similar to chestnut or sassafras, which it somewhat resembles. It machines well, and generally hand tools well, and is easily carved because of its mild grain pattern. The last I got has a sprinkling of wormholes, which I don't remember from years past, also the boards tended to be fairly narrow, 4-7" wide; both due, I suspect to the blight that another poster referred to. I had a bit of a problem locating this butternut for a project that the customer had specified it, maybe it's starting to get a little scarce.
Ray
Interesting. Thanks for the information.
J
Ray,
Maybe it's just me, but I really like the smell of Walnut, it kind of reminds me of the smell of Cinnamon (kind of), I would call it a spicy smell. Now Poplar on the other hand I really hate the smell of, I would describe it as acrid smelling.
Edited 5/17/2007 8:10 am ET by BOBABEUI
Bob,
It's definitely just you! Hah, ha. I don't mind the smell myself, but some do, to the point of being allergic. Some poplar has a distinct ly (emphasis on stink) unpleasant aroma. I call it toilet poplar. And I once worked with a fellow who hated the small of oak; he called it "pi$$ oak". People often comment on the pleasant "woody" smell when they first come into the shop, me, I don't notice it anymore. But when I visit the Mennonite harness shop...
Ray
John,
Thanks for providing an explanation of Claro. I think it may be late in the game to try to change the vocabulary of wood dealers. It seems to be over used or misused often by all people dealing with walnut. Whether its woodworkers or dealers many seem to use to the word Claro for a variety of reasons. Thanks again, Sara
Sara,
After my last posting I spent some more time looking at what turned up in a Google search for "claro". It is pretty obvious that the term has been totally and permanently corrupted, claro now seems to mean any nicely figured or colored west coast walnut.
In addition to simply being wrong, the misuse of the term has now poisoned the correct use of the term. There is no longer a clearly understood and unambiguous name for the unique wood that shows up in the trunk of grafted walnut trees, the best you could say about it is "the wood that used to be called claro".
John W.
John:
So Claro now just means "fancy?"
The wood that used to be called Claro -- reminds me of Monty Python somehow -- "The knights who formerly said nih"
J
Joe,
Or "the artist formerly known as Prince".
Interesting story about how that happened:
Prince had a falling out with his record label and it turned out that the company actually owned the legal rights to his name, so once he left he couldn't call himself "Prince" anymore. He invented an abstract symbol as a substitute name. Since the symbol had no verbal meaning and couldn't be pronounced, it forced everybody to say "the artist formerly known as Prince", keeping his name in circulation without actually using it himself. Must have ticked off the record company's lawyers.
John W.
John,
Your knowledge knows no bounds! I bet you have Purple Rain tucked away in your vinyl collection somewhere!
Laughs,
Lee
It's only trivia, real knowledge needs to have some useful purpose, which I doubt that anecdotes about Prince has.
I don't have the Purple Rain album, but I'll have to go find a copy, seems that I did like it. Got rid of all my albums when I traveled a lot, too heavy to keep hauling around.
Didn't he also make a movie titled Purple Rain?
John w.
So....if I graft any walnut, even nigra to nigra, the resulting graft area, will be clairo if it develops a burl...?Its the bulbous graft regardless of scion (upper)to any root stock. As long as the graft causes a confusion of the cell structure resulting in a burl at the graft. Is a burl not at the graft in the truest terms "clairo"..?Would clairo apply to other species which develop a burl at the graft..?Ron
I don't think that the grafted trees developed a distinct burl above the graft, but there was distinctive grain swirling and often color streaking that extended some distance up into the trunk.
The term "claro" as I know it was always applied to walnut trees that were grafted for nut production. It is likely that similar grafts in other tree species would develop some interesting grain and color but I have never seen it.
It would seem, at this point, that the term claro no longer refers to the wood from grafted walnut trees so calling the wood from other grafted species claro will only further the confusion. Time for a new name.
John W.
John,
Yes, he made a movie by that name. Since we no longer have a working VHS player, I will forward it to you if you and the ladywife have one to play it on.
By the way, if I'm not mistaken, he played every instrument on his first few albums during the recording process. No other band members needed until the tour. The guy's a bit flaky, but one heck of a musician. And the "symbol" stunt did nothing short of catapaulting his career and album sales.
Lee
P.S. To the O.P. - Sorry this has nothing to do with walnut!
No apology needed. No worries. Can't stand Prince as a clebrity, but I have to give him his due as a musician and businessman...Normally I'm a rock and roller, but I saw Hank Williams Jr. one time here in Seattle, about 14 years ago. Great show, great showman. In the middle of the concert, he went to each band member, and did a solo on their instrument, played every instrument in the band, and not Mary had a little lamb either. Drums, Sax, Violin, guitar, horn, harmonica, probably forgetting one or two. It was amazing and really impressed me with his talent. That's the only time I've been to a show and actually saw 'fans' disrobe. Wild concert, and I've been to a lot in my time...Now, about that Claro.....;-)
Lee,
I'd love to borrow the tape. If you didn't want it back I'll send you a couple of extra dollars, in addition to your shipping cost which I'll pay in any case.
You could send it to me at the magazine:
John White, Taunton Press, 63 South Main St., Newtown, CT 06470
Thanks, John
John,
I'll dig it up and send it out next week - I have about 4 or 5 packages to mail so I might as well stand in line once and get it all over with at the same time.
Lee
The guy's a bit flaky, but one heck of a musician. And the "symbol" stunt did nothing short of catapaulting his career and album sales.
I had much the same opinion for the longest time. And then I watched a program several years ago where it was explained that the symbol stunt actually had a very rational basis. He'd foolishly signed a contract when he was still not a bigtime star and later found out that he couldn't legally perform as "Prince" when and where he wanted to because he'd signed the legal right to that name away... for the duration of the contract. He felt he was getting ripped off financially and simply didn't have the legal option of breaking the contract and taking his lumps with the financial end of it because of the name thing. So, he decided to legally change his name and wait out the legal terms of the contract. Once it expired he dumped the symbol and went back to being Prince.
My perception when that all was going on was that he had lost touch with reality on some level. But now that I understand why he did it I admire his courage, creativity and stubborn refusal to turn aside in the legal game of "Chicken."
Kevin,
I would agree with what you said. It seems there was a little more to the story than I knew.
Any by the way, you also have to admire the fact that he was first in a long, long line of people to sleep with Carmen Electra. ;)
Lee
Fascinating.
J
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