Music like a river

SO SEXY, freedom. So sexy, he couldn’t begin to explain it. Free to put on mascara, paint his lips, glue on long eyelashes to lower, flutter and seduce. Wear any colour, especially purple, but also electric blue, scarlet, glitter-silver and eye-aching lizard green. Strut in ruffles, squeeze in black leather, preen his naked midriff, shake his naked ass out of a yellow jumpsuit. Stack his heels, until his elfin figure became a giant. Dance with a white man, writhe with a black woman, kiss both, couple with either, be both races and sexes and neither in one cat-like, commanding frame. And, along the way, sell more than 100m records worldwide.

Free in his music, too. Brutal as a rapper, tender as a balladeer, swooping smoothly from bass to falsetto. Astounding on guitar, soaring off into a universe of riffs and improvisations. At the half-time concert at the Super Bowl at Miami in 2007, in torrential rain, he seemed unable to stop; and it was the same on piano, keyboards, percussion, drums. He played 27 instruments on his first album, “For You”, in 1978, but felt he had the hang of thousands.