Cloud Guitar Formerly Owned by Prince

Built by Bellingham, Washington, luthier Andy Beech (b. unknown) of D’Haitre Guitars, this 1993 Cloud guitar was played by Prince in 1993-94 and donated to an auction in 1994 to benefit Los Angeles Earthquake Relief. Beech created 31 guitars for Prince during the musician’s lifetime.  

The Cloud Guitar’s iconic shape is deeply connected with Prince, and the musician had many of them made during his career. The guitar’s design is based on a one-off “F Bass” created in 1972 by New York City luthier Jeff Levin (b. unknown) of Sardonyx Guitars. Levin's bass, in turn, was inspired by the shape of an F-style or Florentine-style mandolin. Prince purchased Levin’s bass in New York City in the late 1970s for his friend and bandmate André Cymone (b. 1958), and the Prince Estate still has this instrument in their collection. 

In 1983, Prince’s Purple Rain film was in development and the production needed a custom guitar that would be part of the film’s plot. Prince approached Minneapolis guitar tech Dave Rusen (b. unknown), of Knut Koupeé Music, to create the instrument, and provided him with the Sardonyx F Bass for inspiration. From the shape of that instrument, Rusen designed the first Cloud guitar, with white finish and gold hardware, to feature in the 1984 film. Rusen would go on to create several iterations of the Cloud guitar for Prince. From the late 1980s to the mid-2000s, Prince commissioned dozens of additional Cloud guitars from multiple luthiers, including Andy Beech. 

Prince Rogers Nelson (1958-2016), known simply as Prince, was an American songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, singer, record producer, and actor, a pioneer of the “Minneapolis Sound.” He released dozens of Billboard Top Ten hits, including “Purple Rain,” “Kiss,” and “Little Red Corvette.” Prince’s music fluidly traversed Pop, Rock, New Wave, Funk, R&B, and Soul, among other genres. He is globally lauded as one of the greatest musicians and performers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.