D’Angelo Cries, Sings Prince’s ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ — ‘I Often Dream Of Heaven, I Know That Prince Is There’ [Video]
The below YouTube video, titled “D’Angelo ft. Princess: Sometimes It Snows in April,” is getting plenty of buzz, with nearly 90,000 views and counting. D’Angelo was deemed the perfect person to cover a Prince song — even though Prince reportedly didn’t like it when other people covered Prince songs, so said Mariah Carey, who sang “One Sweet Day” instead as a tribute to Prince, as reported by E! Nevertheless, when “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” by D’Angelo put him on the scene and made the single name of D’Angelo a household name, it was said that D’Angelo did Prince better than Prince did himself back at that time.
With ranging falsettos and runs that harkened any Prince song, the “How Does It Feel” song by D’Angelo had all sorts of Prince’s influences upon it. Now, D’Angelo is making big buzz for his rendition of “Sometimes It Snows in April,” and how D’Angelo reacted upon changing the lyric to sing, “I often dream of heaven and I know that Prince is there.” Instead of being able to pick up the next line of “Sometimes It Snows in April” to sing about Prince finding another friend, D’Angelo had to rely upon his backup singers Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum’s cover band Princess to carry that line, since D’Angelo was overcome with emotion over Prince’s death.
https://youtu.be/6uzBHhPEWpE
On Twitter, Sometimes It Snows in April by D’Angelo has garnered more than 10,000 tweets, and has been sent to the trending section of the social media website. The video from The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon comes with a description that explains the tribute and back-up singers.
“Music guest D’Angelo pays a moving tribute to Prince by covering his classic ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’ with help from Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum’s cover band, Princess, for the Tonight Show audience.”
D’Angelo covered the Prince song that was released in 1986 for the movie Under the Cherry Moon, wherein Prince starred as Christopher Tracy. Unlike the U.S.-based Purple Rain, the formerly mentioned movie showed Prince jaunting overseas with Jerome Benton to try and run scams off of rich ladies. Prince’s character, off course, ends up falling for one of those extremely rich women — and in the end, it doesn’t bode well for Tracy.
That’s why Tracy’s name appears all throughout the “Sometimes It Snows in April” song, a decidedly sad and melancholy and haunting song — but a favorite among Prince fans. Count D’Angelo as one of those Prince fans, with D’Angelo showing up to sing “Sometimes It Snows in April” dressed in Prince regalia, with the black hat and scarf covering his eye the way Prince has worn his gear before. A big, fluffy white coat topped off D’Angelo’s outfit as he sat at the piano and gave a stirring rendition of Prince’s “Sometimes It Snows in April” song — perhaps in a way that Prince himself might have found worthy and acceptable.
Mariah Carey's tribute to Prince will bring you to tears: https://t.co/RIjp01Cr8d
— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) April 23, 2016
In the top photo above, the Prince Tribute at the Warner Music Building in Burbank, California, as it appeared on April 26, is displayed.
“Ok Maya Rudolph!! Your mother would be proud. This is beautiful.”
“My eyes full of water, my heart on the ground, thank you D’Angelo and above all thank you PRINCE.”
“It did snow in April, rip prince, you were awesome and gave me so much joy since I was a little kid.”
“D’Angelo is another great talent, and he did a superb justice to this song for Prince… Sometimes it snows in April… life is extremely unpredictable, but it still beautiful enough to wish it will last forever… EVER PRINCE”
According to the Star Tribune, D’Angelo also one covered Prince’s “She’s Always in My Hair” song.
[Photo by David Edwards/MediaPunch/IPX]
