Prine, John

views updated May 18 2018

John Prine

Singer, songwriter

Performing Began as a Sideline

Developed Loyal Folk Following

Maintained Reputation as Lyrical Storyteller

Selected discography

Sources

The folk songs of singer-songwriter John Prine have the natural grace and universality one hears only from a born story teller, asserted Don Heckman in the New York Times. Prine, a former mail carrier from Chicago, burst onto the national folk scene in the early 1970s performing original melodies and lyrics that poetically sketched the lives of grass-roots, working-class Americans. His 1971 debut album John Prine was widely praised by critics, and he has since recorded several albums that have secured his reputation as a distinctly gifted storytelling songwriter, in addition, his compositions have been recorded by numerous other artists, including Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, John Denver, Joan Baez, Carly Simon, and Bette Midler. According to Ed McCormack in Rolling Stone, Prines songs are wholly and unmistakably in the American grain, jukebox songs, barroom songs, blue neon light songs, liquor store songs, hobo songs songs like early-American primitive paintings, bittersweet and filled with humor and gothic irony.

Prine was raised in a working-class family with strong country roots. He grew up in Maywood, Illinois, a blue-collar suburb of Chicago, where his father worked in the steel mills. Prines family had moved to Chicago from Muhlenberg County in western Kentucky, deep in the heart of stripmining coal country, where his grandfather played guitar with such country artists as lke Everly and Merle Travis. Prine learned the guitar at the age of fourteen from his grandfather and his older brother and soon was composing his own melodies and lyrics, many which displayed his country heritage. While growing up, Prine spent his summers in Kentucky, and his classic song Paradise evokes his familys hometown. He told Time: Until I was 15 I didnt know that the word paradise meant anything other than the town in Kentucky where all my relatives came from.

Performing Began as a Sideline

Prine did not originally set out to make a career of performing and songwriting. After graduating from high school and serving in the army, he worked as a mail carrier in Chicago. As a break from the drudgeries of his postal job, he began performing his songsmany conceived during his delivery routein the coffee houses of Chicagos Old Town district. Prine was heard by singer-songwriters Kris Kristofferson and Paul Anka, who were immediately impressed and felt Prine deserved national exposure. Both helped the young singer obtain bookings in folkclubs in New York City and Los Angeles and led him towards his first recording contract with Atlantic Records.

When his debut album, John Prine, was released in

For the Record

Born October 10, 1946, in Maywood, IL; divorced twice.

U.S. Postal Service, Chicago, mail carrier, c. late 1960s; performing artist, 1969; recording artist, 1971; president of Oh Boy Records, Los Angeles. Military service: Served in U.S. Army during mid-1960s; stationed in West Germany.

Addresses: Office oh Boy Records, P.O. Box 36099, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Management Al Bunetta Management, 4121 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

1971, Prine was hailed by critics as a major new folk talent. The American idiom of his lyrics and his rough-edged vocal stylings brought comparisons to 1960s folk-giant Bob Dylan, yet critics singled out the impact of Prines lyrical portraits of ordinary people. A contributor to Time wrote: His leisurely, deceptively genial songs deal with the disillusioned fringe of Middle America, hauntingly evoking the world of fluorescent-lit truck stops, overladen knickknack shelves, gravel-dusty Army posts and lost loves. In a plangent baritone he squeezes poetry out of the anguished longing of empty lives.

Developed Loyal Folk Following

Prine went on to release four other albums with Atlantic and, although never breaking through with a large chart-topping record, maintained a dedicated cult following. According to Irwin Stambler and Grelun Landon in The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country, and Western Music, Prines Atlantic recordings represent some of the high points of American folk music in the 1970s. Included in this group are some of Prines better-known songs such as Hello in There, Paradise, Sam Stone, Yes I Guess They Oughta Name a Drink After You, and Grandpa Was a Carpenter. These first recordings, according to John Rockwell in the New York Times, portrayed a songwriter of real wit and originality. During the early 1970s, Prine toured heavily as a performer, playing at music festivals, concerts, and folkclubs across the United States. Reviewing Prine in a New York City performance in 1973, a Village Voice reviewer described him as a completely relaxed, friendly, unshow-biz performer. Simple, even pure, in the kind of thing he does.

In 1978, Prine switched over to Asylum Records, and Bruised Orange his first record with the labelreceived wide acclaim. Cited by Time as one of the ten best albums of 1978, Bruised Orange contained the songs If You Dont Want My Love, Fish and Whistle, and Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone. The latter, according to Rockwell, is ostensibly about a circus performer toiling on a tour to support a film, but clearly a self-image full of amused mockery and controlled grotesquerie. The entire album, Rockwell continued, amply displays Prines gift to marry the unpretentious basics of folk musical styles and poetic imagery with an almost bizarrely exaggerated imagination.

The following year, Prines Pink Cadillac was released and, according to Robert Palmer in the New York Times, represented Prines masterpiece to date. Displaying a stronger rock and roll sound than Prines previous albums, Pink Cadillac was co-produced by Prine and veteran Memphis record-maker Jerry Phillips in a way to preserve the sense of live musicians recording together. The album featured five new Prine songs, including Saigon and Down by the Side of the Road, and also the contributions of rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley. Palmer claimed Pink Cadillac courts a kind of greatness thats extremely rare in contemporary popular music.

Maintained Reputation as Lyrical Storyteller

Since 1980, Prine has recorded with Los Angeles-based Oh Boy Records, of which he is also president. Prine has released four albums with Oh Boy, including 1986s well-received German Afternoons, and in 1988 was part of a successful tour which paired him with folk-country singer Nanci Griffith. His 1989 double-album, John Prine Live, gives a virtual career retrospective of his work from the 1970s through 1980s, a contributor to Wilson Library Bulletin wrote. The albums are a vivid representation of the ample skills Prine brings to his live performances, and showcase his extraordinary storytelling songs.

After a four-year hiatus from recording, Prine returned to the studio, this time with Howie Epstein of Tom Pettys Heartbreakers as producer. The resulting album, The Missing Years, was released in 1992 on the Oh Boy label and garnered sensational reviews. Featuring background vocals by such noted singers as Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty, the songs on The Missing Years bear Prines trademark observations on human nature. Many of the tunes grapple with the universal feelings of passion, frustration, disappointment and regret. On the more capricious side, though, the title track traces the so-called missing years in the life of Jesus Christ, speculating from a 1960s point of view on how he might have spent his adolescence.

Commenting on Prines overall contribution to the folk genre, Rolling Stone contributor David Wild declared: He was, and is, a songwriters songwriter, widely admired for his ability to intermingle gracefully the humorous and the heartbreaking. If this record hadnt done well, I probably would have quit, Prine told Gil Asakawa in Pulse! Now, I cant stop.

Selected discography

John Prine, Atlantic, 1971.

Diamonds in the Rough, Atlantic, 1972.

Sweet Revenge, Atlantic, 1973.

Common Sense, Atlantic, 1975.

Prime Prine: The Best of John Prine, Atlantic, 1976.

Bruised Orange, Asylum, 1978.

Pink Cadillac, Asylum, 1979.

Storm Windows, Asylum, 1980.

Aimless Love, Oh Boy, 1984.

German Afternoons, Oh Boy, 1986.

John Prine Live, Oh Boy, 1988.

(Collaborator) Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two, Universal, 1989.

The Missing Years, Oh Boy, 1991.

Sources

Books

Baggelaar, Kristin, and Donald Milton, Folk Music: More Than a Song, Crowell, 1976.

Stambler, Irwin, and Grelun Landon, The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country, and Western Music, 2nd edition, St. Martins, 1983.

Periodicals

Audio, August 1989.

Entertainment Weekly, November 22, 1991.

New York Times, November 5, 1971; June 18, 1972; February 27, 1973; April 20, 1975; December 17, 1975; May 28, 1978; July 13, 1978; September 23, 1979.

Pulse!, February 1992.

Rolling Stone, October 12, 1972; January 23, 1992; February 20, 1992.

Stereo Review, April 1991.

Time, July 24, 1972.

Village Voice, December 20, 1973; April 21, 1975.

Wilson Library Bulletin, January 1989.

Michael E. Mueller

Prine, John

views updated May 29 2018

Prine, John

Singer, songwriter

The folk songs of singer-songwriter John Prine "have the natural grace and universality one hears only from a born story teller," asserted Don Heckman in the New York Times. Prine, a former mail carrier from Chicago, burst onto the national folk scene in the early 1970s, performing original melodies and lyrics that poetically sketched the lives of grass roots, working-class Americans. His 1971 debut album, John Prine, was widely praised by critics, and he has since recorded several albums that have secured his reputation as a distinctly gifted storytelling songwriter. His compositions have been recorded by numerous other artists, including Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, John Denver, Joan Baez, Carly Simon, and Bette Midler. According to Ed McCormack in Rolling Stone, Prine's songs are "wholly and unmistakably in the American grain, jukebox songs, barroom songs, blue neon light songs, liquor store songs, hobo songs ... songs like early-American primitive paintings, bittersweet and filled with humor and gothic irony."

Prine was raised in a working-class family with strong country roots. He grew up in Maywood, Illinois, a blue-collar suburb of Chicago, where his father worked in the steel mills. Prine's family had moved to Chicago from Muhlenberg County in western Kentucky, deep in the heart of strip mining coal country, where his grandfather played guitar with such country artists as Ike Everly and Merle Travis. Prine learned the guitar at the age of 14 from his grandfather and his older brother, and soon was composing his own melodies and lyrics, many of which displayed his country heritage. While growing up, Prine spent his summers in Kentucky, and his classic song "Paradise" evokes his family's hometown. He told Time: "Until I was 15 I didn't know that the word paradise meant anything other than the town in Kentucky where all my relatives came from."

Prine did not originally set out to make a career of performing and songwriting. After graduating from high school and serving in the army, he worked as a mail carrier in Chicago. As a break from his postal job, he began performing his songs, many conceived during his delivery rounds, in the coffee houses of Chicago's Old Town district. Prine was heard by singer-songwriters Kris Kristofferson and Paul Anka, who were immediately impressed. Both helped the young singer obtain bookings in folk clubs in New York City and Los Angeles, and led him toward his first recording contract with Atlantic Records.

Debut Album Released

When his debut album, John Prine, was released in 1971, Prine was hailed by critics as a major new folk talent. The American idiom of his lyrics and his rough-edged vocal stylings brought comparisons to 1960s folk giant Bob Dylan, yet critics singled out the impact of Prine's lyrical portraits of ordinary people. A contributor to Time wrote: "His leisurely, deceptively genial songs deal with the disillusioned fringe of Middle America, hauntingly evoking the world of fluorescent-lit truck stops, overladen knickknack shelves, gravel-dusty Army posts and lost loves. In a plangent baritone ... he squeezes poetry out of the anguished longing of empty lives."

Prine went on to release four other albums with Atlantic and, although never breaking through with a large chart-topping record, he maintained a dedicated cult following. According to Irwin Stambler and Grelun Landon in The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country, and Western Music, Prine's Atlantic recordings "represent some of the high points of American folk music in the 1970s." Included in this group are some of Prine's better-known songs, such as "Hello in There," "Paradise," "Sam Stone," "Yes I Guess They Oughta Name a Drink After You," and "Grandpa Was a Carpenter." These first recordings, according to John Rockwell in the New York Times, portrayed "a songwriter of real wit and originality." During the early 1970s, Prine toured heavily as a performer, playing at music festivals, concerts, and folk clubs across the United States. Reviewing Prine in a New York City performance in 1973, a Village Voice reviewer described him as "a completely relaxed, friendly, unshow-biz performer. ... Simple, even pure, in the kind of thing he does."

In 1978 Prine switched over to Asylum Records, and Bruised Orange—his first record with the label—received wide acclaim. Cited by Time as one of the ten best albums of 1978, Bruised Orange contained the songs "If You Don't Want My Love," "Fish and Whistle," and "Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone." The latter, according to Rockwell, is "ostensibly about a circus performer toiling on a tour to support a film, but is clearly a self-image full of amused mockery and controlled grotesquerie." The entire album, Rockwell continued, amply displays Prine's gift "to marry the unpretentious basics of folk musical styles and poetic imagery with an almost bizarrely exaggerated imagination."

Received Critical Acclaim

The following year, Prine's Pink Cadillac was released and, according to Robert Palmer in the New York Times, represented "Prine's masterpiece to date." Displaying a stronger rock and roll sound than Prine's previous albums, Pink Cadillac was co-produced by Prine and veteran Memphis record-maker Jerry Phillips in a way that preserved the sense of live musicians recording together. The album featured five new Prine songs, including "Saigon" and "Down by the Side of the Road," and also included the contributions of rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley. Palmer claimed Pink Cadillac "courts a kind of greatness that's extremely rare in contemporary popular music."

Since 1980 Prine has recorded with Los Angeles-based Oh Boy Records, and also serves as its president. Prine has released four albums with Oh Boy, including 1986's well-received German Afternoons, and in 1988 was part of a successful tour which paired him with folk-country singer Nanci Griffith. His 1989 double album, John Prine Live, gives "a virtual career retrospective" of his work from the 1970s through 1980s, according to Wilson Library Bulletin. The article added that the albums are a "vivid representation of the ample skills" Prine brings to his live performances, and showcase his "extraordinary storytelling songs."

After a four-year hiatus from recording, Prine returned to the studio, this time with Howie Epstein of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers as producer. The resulting album, The Missing Years, was released in 1992 on the Oh Boy label, and garnered sensational reviews. Featuring background vocals by such noted singers as Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty, the songs on The Missing Years include Prine's trademark observations on human nature. Many grapple with the universal feelings of passion, frustration, disappointment and regret. On the more capricious side, the title track traces the so-called "missing years" in the life of Jesus, speculating from a 1960s point of view on how he might have spent his adolescence.

Commenting on Prine's overall contribution to the folk genre, Rolling Stone contributor David Wild declared: "He was, and is, a songwriter's songwriter, widely admired for his ability to intermingle gracefully the humorous and the heartbreaking." "If this record hadn't done well, I probably would have quit," Prine told Gil Asakawa in Pulse!, "Now, I can't stop."

For the Record . . .

Born on October 10, 1946, in Maywood, IL; divorced twice.

Served in Army during mid-1960s; U.S. Postal Service, Chicago, mail carrier, c. late 1960s; performing artist, 1969–; recording artist, 1971–; president of Oh Boy Records, Los Angeles.

Addresses: Office—Oh Boy Records, P.O. Box 36099, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Management—Al Bunetta Management, 4121 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 204, Los An geles, CA 90010.

Remade and Reissued

Prine marked time with a collection of songs loosely connected to the Christmas season in 2003, including remakes of such early Prine classics as "Christmas in Prison," and newly recorded versions of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and a duet with Margo Timmins, "If You Were the Woman and I Was the Man." He reunited with Epstein for his next release, Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings, which included a duet with the gravel-voiced Marianne Faithfull on the heartfelt and touching "This Love Is Real." The album was given short shrift by critics, who nonetheless praised the album's tracks reissued on the subsequent live album, John Prine: Live on Tour, such as "Lake Marie" and "Humidity Built the Snowman." The live album also featured a full-band live workout on Prine's subtle indictment of chronic marijuana use, "Illegal Smile," from his debut album.

In 1999 Prine issued In Spite of Ourselves, an homage to the music and the female singers Prine admired. Notable for its inclusion of such world-class musicians as mandolin player Sam Bush, pedal steel guitar player Buddy Emmons, and country music journeyman Marty Stuart, the album featured duets with Iris Dement, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, Lucinda Williams, and others, on such songs as Don Everly's "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Gone Bad)" and Freddie Hart's "Loose Talk." The album's title track is the lone Prine composition of the collection, and was written for a Billy Bob Thornton dramatic film in which Prine appeared, titled Daddy & Them. In 2000 Prine re-recorded many of his classic songs for the album Souvenirs, including "Angel from Montgomery," "Grandpa Was a Carpenter," and "Please Don't Bury Me." While the effort made sense from an economic standpoint (Prine had lost rights to the original master recordings of his own compositions), from an artistic standpoint the remakes added little to the luster of the original recordings.

In 2005 Prine released his first album of entirely original material in the nine years since Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. During those years, he won a battle with cancer and wrote the songs included on Fair & Square. According to Uncut critic Luke Torn, Prine's writing hadn't lost its edge during the interim: "Fair & Square delivers Prine's trademark croak and simple folk arrangements occasionally spiced by steel guitar or accordion, but it's the quality of the writing—from the complicated ruminations of 'Taking a Walk' to the lovelorn 'The Moon Is Down'—that shines on into his fourth decade."

Selected discography

John Prine, Atlantic, 1971.

Diamonds in the Rough, Atlantic, 1972.

Sweet Revenge, Atlantic, 1973.

Common Sense, Atlantic, 1975.

Prime Prine: The Best of John Prine, Atlantic, 1976.

Bruised Orange, Asylum, 1978.

Pink Cadillac, Asylum, 1979.

Storm Windows, Asylum, 1980.

Aimless Love, Oh Boy, 1984.

German Afternoons, Oh Boy, 1986.

John Prine Live, Oh Boy, 1988.

(Collaborator) Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Un-broken, Volume Two, Universal, 1989.

The Missing Years, Oh Boy, 1991.

John Prine Christmas, Oh Boy, 1994.

Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings, Oh Boy, 1995.

John Prine: Live on Tour, Oh Boy, 1997.

In Spite of Ourselves, Oh Boy, 1999.

Souvenirs, Oh Boy, 2000.

Fair & Square, Oh Boy, 2005.

Sources

Books

Baggelaar, Kristin, and Donald Milton, Folk Music: More Than a Song, Crowell, 1976.

Stambler, Irwin, and Grelun Landon, The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country, and Western Music, 2nd edition, St. Martin's, 1983.

Periodicals

Audio, August 1989.

Entertainment Weekly, November 22, 1991.

New York Times, November 5, 1971; June 18, 1972; February 27, 1973; April 20, 1975; December 17, 1975; May 28, 1978; July 13, 1978; September 23, 1979.

Pulse!, February 1992.

Rolling Stone, October 12, 1972; January 23, 1992; February 20, 1992.

Stereo Review, April 1991.

Time, July 24, 1972.

Uncut, May 2005.

Village Voice, December 20, 1973; April 21, 1975.

Wilson Library Bulletin, January 1989.

—Michael E. Mueller andBruce Walker

Prine, John

views updated Jun 08 2018

JOHN PRINE

Born: Maywood, Illinois, 10 October 1946

Genre: Country

Best-selling album since 1990: The Missing Years (1991)


Since 1971 singer/songwriter John Prine has enchanted his loyal fan base and earned the respect of industry peers with clever, literate, narrative-driven story songs. A gifted lyricist with a wry, understated wit, Prine writes sad songs that seem funny, and humorous songs rife with heartbreak. Prine has never attained huge commercial success, but he did improve album sales when he formed his own record company.

Although they lived in the Chicago suburbs, Prine's parents had a strong connection to Kentucky coal country. His father moved them north to escape that way of life, but they visited relatives in the summers and frequented a small western Kentucky town named Paradise that Prine made famous in a song by the same name. At the age of fourteen, Prine learned some guitar chords and began writing songs. His influences were Hank Williams and Roger Miller. After serving two years in the Army in West Germany, he returned to his job with the postal service and frequented Chicago's folk clubs. In 1969 friends coerced Prine into performing at one of the clubs, and he played three songs: "Sam Stone," "Hello in There," and "Paradise." (All three appear on his debut album.) His performance convinced the club's owner to hire Prine regularly, and he emerged as part of Chicago's music scene, secured a record deal, and released his first album, John Prine (1971). The album drew raves; Prine's songs, many written as a teenager, seemed wise beyond his years. "Hello in There" examines loneliness and senility from the point of view of the song's elderly male character. He sings, "Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more / She sits and stares out the back door screen." Prine's tasteful avoidance of rhyming the two lines displayed songwriting confidence and maturity. Prine was among the first songwriters to chronicle the plight of Vietnam War veterans; his "Sam Stone" is the melancholy tale of a heroin-addicted vet who returns home with a "Purple Heart and a monkey on his back." In addition, few songwriters can turn a phrase in the way that Prine can. One example of this talent is heard in "Spanish Pipedream," an amusing romp about a draft-dodging soldier and a topless dancer who go on to live happily ever after. It begins, "She was a level-headed dancer, on the road to alcohol, and I was just a soldier, on the way to Montreal."

Prine's Twain-like sensibility caught critics' attention, and he was dubbed, along with a handful of other budding folk artists, as a contender to become the "New Bob Dylan." This short-lived phenomenon originated from a New York Times article; one of the other candidates, Loudon Wainwright III, lampooned the concept and invoked Prine's name in his 1992 song, "Talking New Bob Dylan."

Unfortunately, John Prine sold poorly, as did subsequent albums. However, his music built a loyal following that allowed Prine a steady small-venue concert career. Along the way, he altered his style to appease record companies, drawing on country rock and rockabilly on Common Sense (1975) and Pink Cadillac (1979). These gambits failed to widen his audience, however. A disillusioned Prine found himself without a record label and contemplating retirement before he made the bold move of creating his own record company, Oh Boy Records, in 1980. Four years later, he released his first album, Aimless Love (1984). He continued his comeback with the Grammy-nominated German Afternoons (1985).

Prine waited six years to release his next studio recording, The Missing Years (1991), which included guest work by Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. To the delight of many in the music industry who long recognized Prine's contributions, The Missing Years won a 1991 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Howie Epstein, the bass player for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, produced the album and seemed to find just the right mix for Prine, who has never been hailed as a great vocalist. The appealing twang in Prine's singing style suggests much more of his Kentucky heritage than his Chicago upbringing.

After John Prine Christmas (1994), a droll, offbeat album of eight loosely gathered songs (some of them relating to the holiday season), Prine released the critically acclaimed Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (1995). Again, Epstein managed to combine Prine's exquisite wordplay with a punchy beat. The album is a typical blend of Prine's funny and sad songs, including "Ain't Hurtin' Nobody," wherein Prine sings, "Six million seven hundred thousand and thirty-three lights on, you think someone could take the time to sit down and listen to the words of my song." In "Lake Marie," Prine talks most of the lyrics, at one point confessing, "Many years later we found ourselves in Canada trying to save our marriage and perhaps catch a few fish, whatever came first."

In 1997 Prine's career was interrupted by throat cancer. He spent the next year in treatment, and, after winning a clean bill of health, released the Grammy-nominated In Spite of Ourselves (1999). Prine wrote only the album's title track and pulled the rest of the sixteen songs from classic country music. Additionally, he performed the songs as duets with some of his favorite female singers, including Iris Dement, Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, and Lucinda Williams. The title track is part of the soundtrack to the film Daddy and Them (2003), in which Prine also has an acting role. He spent 2003 extensively touring.

Prine is an esteemed songwriting talent whose songs have been recorded by industry heavyweights such as Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Nanci Griffith, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and John Denver. "Paradise" has been recorded by twenty-four different artists and "Angel from Montgomery" by seventeen. While major commercial success has eluded him, Prine is treasured by his small army of fans and fellow musicians.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

John Prine (Atlantic, 1971); Diamonds in the Rough (Atlantic, 1972); Common Sense (Atlantic, 1975); Bruised Orange (Asylum, 1978); Pink Cadillac (Asylum, 1979); Storm Windows (Asylum, 1980); Aimless Love (Oh Boy, 1984); German Afternoons (Oh Boy, 1985); The Missing Years (Oh Boy, 1991); Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (Oh Boy, 1995); In Spite of Ourselves (Oh Boy, 1999).

donald lowe