Madonna and Prince

I read Chris Willman’s commentary “Enough Already!” (Dec. 20) with extreme interest, as I had just finished that same Sunday morning spending the last two weeks with Prince, while producing his ABC television special “The Ryde Dyvine.”

The irony was that while you were publishing this negative article, Prince was creating an exciting new kind of presentation for music on television. I assure you that after spending many days and sleepless nights working with a man who is driven to always bring something innovative and different to a broad music audience, “The Ryde Dyvine” was much more a positive and creatively satisfying work than your article. Prince’s music vision is broader, more complex and more sophisticated than today’s rock teen Angst or pop balladeers and country fair singers with interesting hairstyles.

His musical mind works in concepts, not sales packages. Although “Purple Rain” sold 15 million albums and the “ “ album has not, neither one was created for that reason in the first place. The man you criticize as “shooting his wad revelation-wise” is the same person who mandated that an obscure group called the Crayons appear before him in his own special because their message of racial coexistence is vehemently important to him right now.

The fact that Prince does not give interviews to members of the music press is quite understandable, considering that there seems so little this artist and journalists have in common to talk about. Please, Mr. Willman, enough already--stop killing music innovation and its authors before there is nothing interesting left to criticize.

DAVID SALTZ

Executive Producer, “ABC in Concert,” New York