John Prine

John Prine

I'm sorry my son but you're too late in askin', Mr. Peabody's coal train done hauled it away.

I first met John Prine around 1974. By “met” I mean in the figurative sense. I have never gotten to actually shake his hand and tell him my name. Prine's music leaves one with a sense of intimacy though. He writes almost in the vernacular and let's face it, he doesn't have a world class singing voice. Kind of like Bob Dylan to whom he was compared in the early days. Heady praise indeed. Recently he was on the Americana award show and commented that he had always wondered what genre his music fit into and was happy to know that it is Americana. You know, a lot of artists have fallen into this category by default and finally someone just gave it a name. I'm glad they did because it has become my favorite genre of music. It carries strains of country, blues and rock among some older forms such as mountain music and oftentimes you can hear the old country. It sings of common things and it tells a story whether it be one of dismay such as The Civil War's Barton Hollow or musing about existentialism as in Jason Isbell's If We Were Vampires. But I digress.

I met John Prine around 1974 while I was in college at EKU. I had fallen in with a bunch of redneck hippies who were listening to music that I had ignored such as Red Headed Stranger or I Don't Think Hank Done It This Way. They had their own band made up of guys from the Shelbyville/Eminence area and they were very good. The Misfit Band played mostly Southern Rock. Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, some Allman Brothers so I became a bit of a redneck too. But John Prine was some of the music they were listening to and I came to love songs like Paradise which suited the environmentalist in me and Sam Stone spoke to my hatred of the war in Vietnam and war in general. Angel From Montgomery was one of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard being sung in that nasal drawl that detracted from the song not one bit. And Illegal Smile, well, you know.

That was 44 years ago and I was a young man full of piss and vinegar and I would sing those songs with John at the top of my lungs confident that I was at least as good a vocalist as he was. Matter of fact, I probably had to back off a little to match him. At least I thought so and he wasn't around to tell me any different.

My copy of that initial Prine offering has long since disappeared much the same as the guy that used to listen to it over and over. The good thing is that those things are never really gone as long as the spark remains and so it has. Now at my current age I can indulge some of those early passions and most folks will just write me off as some crazy old man but I am lucky to know some others of the same ilk. So, today in defiance of President Trump (this is the first time I have put those words together in print) I logged on to my Amazon web site and ordered up a replacement. I got the CD. Maybe I should have sprung for the vinyl being in the state of mind that I am in. I also ordered a copy of The Tree of Forgiveness, his latest work. It is sublime. He can't sing a bit better and maybe he's worse but that really doesn't matter. He writes about things that no one else does in a way that no one else does. On the cover is the face of a man that has weathered the almost 50 years about the same as I have. Well, in my opinion I've held up a bit better but I've not suffered a stroke and had to fight my way back to performing in public. That is what artists do. Artists can't be stopped by physical deformity because they will find a way to release the bomb that explodes in them. I stand in awe of that zeal and determination.

And this last offering is testament to that zeal. His imagining in a ragtime When I Get To Heaven is not only insightful but is hilarious in his way of bringing humanity to the divine. Summer's End calling to the lonely who have strayed to come on home, you don't have to be alone. Caravan of Fools reaches into musings such as Solomon may have had on writing Ecclesiastes. It almost seems as if it is recognition of the years and the toll that they take on the best of us.

Now those who have long admired but failed to see the art and artist in person will have the chance to do so at our own Master Musician's Festival. After years, shoot, decades of trying to lure him to our little festival Tiffany and the Board have landed their whale. Now, I don't know about you but God willing I'll be there. See you there.