By JANE STEVENSON --

They say behind every great man there's a great woman.

In Prince's case, or The Artist, as he is being called this year, there appear to be two. At least on stage. And they're both from Canada.

Montreal musicians Kat Dyson and Rhonda Smith play guitar and bass, respectively, in the New Power Generation, which came to town last Thursday night for a rare club show at the Warehouse. The Artist will likely return to a larger Toronto venue as part of an anticipated world tour.

"I think he relates well to women," says Smith. "I don't want anybody to take what I said there and contrive it negatively. I think it's a great thing. I think there's lots of men who can do that and there are some who can't. He's not threatened by women."

"He did break ground with it, though," adds Dyson, of The Artist's proclivity for using female musicians over the years. "Of course, for female musicians, you notice it and say, 'All right.' It gives you a little boost when you see that."

So despite The Artist's baggage and often strange behavior -- his numerous name changes, the highly publicized break from Warner Bros. Records (prior to which he wrote the word 'slave' on his face) and his refusal to speak about the widely reported death of his son last October -- both Dyson and Smith are glad to be on board.

"A lot of journalists have asked me, 'Well, did you go there expecting him to be distant and cold?' " says Dyson, who along with Smith, now lives close to The Artist's Paisley Park studios near Minneapolis.

"How can you listen to his body of work and go with that impression? For me, your work is a reflection of who you really are. No matter what the persona or what the spin doctors might want you to perceive, the body of the work that he has is so enormous and so vast and so emotional, there's no way I could go in there and think that."

Dyson and Smith were summoned, so to speak, by The Artist after they met his longtime collaborator, Sheila E., at a trade show where they were doing demos for the Canadian guitar company Godin.

"We sent her a tape, our promo stuff," says Dyson, "And then he phoned Sheila and said, 'I'm looking for new musicians.' So she sent our material to him and then he called us."

At the time -- last June -- Dyson was touring with blues guitarist Colin James and working on Cyndi Lauper's new album, Sisters Of Avalon. Smith, working on her own album in the U.S., was able to head to Paisley Park a month earlier than Dyson.

They're both happy to be there.

"He's very generous and gracious with what he has," Smith says. "No matter what you want to do, if you want to go in in the middle of night and go cut a song for yourself or go into the dance studio and practise, it is for you to do."

Adds Dyson: "The colors, everything's been selected so that you're relaxed and it's open. It's alive and it's nonstop and you feel the creativity. There's nothing confining about it. You can stay there all day and there's always more stuff to do and it's fine. There's rehearsal studios, recording studios, a sound stage -- they shot the first Grumpy Old Men in the soundstage, that's how big it is -- there's projection rooms. We've even got a basketball court."

Both Dyson and Smith wound up working on The Artist's latest three-CD set, Emancipation, which has sold two million in the U.S. and just achieved platinum status (100,000 copies) in Canada.

They've since signed on "to work the project" for two more years.

"I think he's in a great state in his life," says Smith. "I don't know that it's better that we're here now instead of Purple Rain days, but that wasn't our destiny. This is, obviously.I'm just trying to take advantage of the opportunity that's there right now."