Cloud Controversy? Well I guess it is to everyone except Clots Owner Jim Irsay! It seems that he recently purchased a yellow cloud guitar in a Beverly Hills auction for a reported 137.5K What? I know right.....that's crazy but that's what is was sold for.
The problem starts (at least for me) with the photo that comes with the story. don't get me wrong it's a beautiful cloud but I have never seen a yellow cloud or any cloud that was used by Prince that had a whammy bar on it and there seems to be a missing output jack in the swirl at the bottom of the guitar where it would and should be and the pic's with Prince holding it the knobs are always black.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/16516846/jim-irsay-indianapolis-colts-owner-buys-prince-yellow-cloud-guitar-137500-auction-beverly-hills
I have a feeling that it was one of the many replicas that were made and put on display at places like the HardRock Cafe'. Maybe someone decided to add on a different bridge and whammy bar because it looked "Cool"? Who knows......but what I do know is that the only real yellow cloud that was given away from Prince / Paisley Park in any official way was to the Smithsonian Institute. This is pretty well documented. Also the yellow cloud was available for purchase through the NPG catalog for 5K for a limited time.
I have almost 90 yellow cloud guitar posts on this blog and none of them resemble that guitar. Now I'm not saying that I've seen them all but maybe Prince had one made like this but he just never used it on stage like the infamous and mysterious orange cloud guitar that was rumored to be used during his Superbowl performance but wasn't and was never heard from again. Prince usually had many of the same guitars at his disposal if he needed them so maybe this was just one of those?
Well it's rumored that he paid 2.2 Milliom for Ringo's drum kit so a yellow Prince cloud guitar seems like chump change for him. I can't even comprehend spending money on that level but I guess everything is relative. I'm sure there will be more to this story as time goes on but next time Jim feel free to drop me a e-mail. I'll help on what ever way I can!
