For this post about John Prine I'm going to begin at the end and end at the beginning.
John passed away on April 7 2020 from Covid-19 complications. He was 73 years old. His last song 'I Remember Everything' was released two months after his death.
In 1998 John was diagnosed with squamous-cell cancer on his neck. The drastic treatment took away part of his neck, severed nerves in his tongue and damaged some salivary glands. Then in 2013 he had cancer surgery on his left lung. The results of all those health issues changed John's voice dramatically but due to his tenacity, therapy and hard work he went back on tour, and his last album 'The Tree of Forgiveness' came out in 2018. The photo on the cover of that album has an older, frailer John, but as shown by the last track on the album, it's also a John who retains his sense of fun and slight irreverence. 'When I Get To Heaven' is a fitting, almost prophetic song but one full of joy. He had friends and family in the studio singing along and when he said there should be people playing kazoos, one of his fan/friends singer Brandi Carlile joined in. When John passed away the internet was flooded with tears and the hope that everything he sang about in that song was waiting for him.
In the middle of his career John wrote the beautiful 'Speed of the Sound of Loneliness' and put it on his 1986 album 'German Afternoons'. In 1993 Nanci Griffith released her album 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' doing covers of a variety of artists. Included on that album was her rendition of 'Speed of the Sound .. ' and none other than John Prine himself provided backing and duet vocals. (I did a Vinyl Vault entry of Nanci on Aug 20 2020). It remains one of my all-time favourite versions.
Now let's look at the start of John's recording career. 1971. His debut eponymous album.
What an album - however you classify it, bluegrass, country folk, Americana, it's quality from beginning to end. The album really came about with promotion from four people. Film critic Roger Ebert heard John play at the Fifth Peg in Chicago and wrote John's first ever review. Steve Goodman (writer of the excellent song 'City of New Orleans' amongst others) was performing with Kris Kristofferson and suggested Kristofferson should go and catch John's act. Kristofferson went on to get Prine and Goodman to open for him when he was playing The Bitter End in NYC. Jerry Wexler from Atlantic Records was in the audience and signed John the following day.
The resulting album is a breath-taking introduction to a massive talent. Half the songs there, all written by John, have been covered by a multitude of people as well as becoming classics in their own right for John himself.
'Angel of Montgomery' is sung by John but taken from a female perspective. The opening line is "I am an old woman .." The story is of a woman desperately wanting to get out of everything about her life but daily becoming old before her time. It uses the theme of aging along with another track from the album, the achingly beautiful heart-rending 'Hello in There'. John was only 25 years old when he recorded this album, but the empathy and pathos contained in the lyrics of this song are from a much older soul.
"You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello""
When it comes to lyrics, IMHO John wrote one of the most powerful lines ever written. 'Sam Stone' deals with a military veteran, coming home with a Purple Heart and an addiction. The Vietnam War isn't mentioned but is inferred and the only drug named is morphine for the pain, but it's clear that heroin was the overdose that eventually killed Sam. The line that kicks me in the gut every time I hear it is sung as if from a child ..
"There's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes"
One more song on this amazing album had a deeper meaning for John and although it was recorded almost 50 years before his death, the sentiments expressed were taken as a dying wish. From the song 'Paradise' John sang ..
"When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am."
After his death, half of his ashes were buried next to his parents in Chicago and the other half were sprinkled in the Green River.
In keeping with this write-up, I'm including two links. One is from his very first album, the other from his last. At the very least listen to these recordings and after that, indulge yourself by digging deeper into the legend that is John Prine.
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