We are sad to report that, according to John Prine's family, he has finally succumbed to the COVID-19 virus that he'd been battling for the past nine days. Rolling Stone writes of Prine's career:
As a songwriter, Prine was admired by Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, and others, known for his ability to mine seemingly ordinary experiences — he wrote many of his classics as a mailman in Maywood, Illinois — for revelatory songs that covered the full spectrum of the human experience. There's "Hello in There," about the devastating loneliness of an elderly couple; "Sam Stone," a portrait of a drug-addicted Vietnam soldier suffering from PTSD; and "Paradise," an ode to his parents' strip-mined hometown of Paradise, Kentucky, which became an environmental anthem. Prine tackled these subjects with empathy and humor, with an eye for "the in-between spaces," the moments people don't talk about, he told Rolling Stone in 2017. "Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism," Dylan said in 2009. "Midwestern mind-trips to the nth degree."
We say goodbye to this great American songwriter with this performance of "Angel from Montgomery," recorded for Austin City Limits, in 2018.
Fly, Mr. Prine. Fly.
Image: YouTube
