I posted this on my facebook page:
[INDENT][quote]We managed to see him live last time he came to Toronto (his first stop since his last visit in 1991) in 2008 I think? I was sincerely hoping to see him again, as it was one of my favourite all time concerts I've ever been to.
A fantastically talented musician - he played a lot of the instruments on each of his albums, could cross genres effortlessly from dance/electronic, slow ballads, country flavoured pop songs, some amazingly innovative covers (his auto tune take of New Order's True Faith is haunting - his cover of Stevie Wonder's They Won't Go When I Go and You and I were beautiful) and had an incredible voice and stage presence.
RIP to one of the greats - you were always my favourite vocalist and every album you put out were always highly anticipated. You will be missed.[/quote]
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He also deserved a lot of respect for his very generous work with AIDS related charities, including 3 original songs from the jettisoned Listen Without Prejudice Vol 2 album that he never completed due to a contract dispute with Sony in 1991.
The man's vocal range was remarkable, his understanding of music and ability to make a wide variety of songs straddling a number of different genres constantly surprised me. His duets that he did with Mary J. Blige, Whitney Houston, Elton John, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett and others were always something special. I hope that his rumored demos with Daft Punk and the work he was doing recently with Naughty Boy (who recently worked with Drake) will get released, as well as the documentary that was recently completed about his life.
RIP - like I said, he will be truly missed. I'm going to be listening to a lot of his work for the next few days.