Bruce Rits Gilbert - John Prine One Song at a Time

First published 2021

Copyright 2021 by Bruce Rits Gilbert

All rights reserved

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-578-80051-6

ebook ISBN: 978-1-098-35410-7

Edited by Tess Gunty

Book Design by Nicholas Gunty

Cover photograph by Rich Zimmermann

Photographs of John Prine (Chapters 2, 15 and 20) and of Kris Kristofferson (Chapter 17) courtesy of Rich Zimmermann

Photograph of Sun Records (Chapter 6) courtesy of JeremyA, adapted by Nicholas Gunty and licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5

All other photographs courtesy of Bruce Rits Gilbert

All sketches by Nicholas Gunty

To my four beautiful grandkids: Calder, Jane, Jack, and Charlie. Every day, you allow me to say, How lucky can one man get. I love you.

~ Boo

Im old enough to have hopped on the John Prine bandwagon right from the very start. But, in the late 1960s, when John was a mailman in Maywood, Illinois, and writing songs while delivering the mail, I was just starting high school. And in 1971, when John released his first albumJohn PrineI was beginning my senior year, playing football and listening mostly to The Beatles, The Band , Buddy Holly , Chuck Berry , and all sorts of rock and roll. John Prine did not yet exist in my world.

But, back then, somewhat as a guilty pleasure, I liked country music, even though I really didnt know much about it. And, as country rock became a thing, I became a fan. I became semi-obsessed with Bob Dylan s Nashville Skyline, which came out in 1969. Brewer & Shipley s Tarkio Road was constantly on my turntable. And I was just starting to learn about Johnny Cash , Dolly Parton , and other country stars of the era.

So when I headed off to college in 1972 at the University of Wisconsin, I packed my portable record player and a bunch of albums. As was common in most kids dormitories back then, music was almost always on in my room. You know, headphones existed, but not many folks used them, and it was well before the days of the Walkman. So blasting a record from the tinny speakers in ones room was the norm.

Album trading / borrowing / taking-and-never-returning was another norm of that time, and one day, in the spring semester in 1973, I ended up with a John Prine album on my turntable. As I recall, it was an album owned by the older sister of one of my friends. And it was spectacular. The album was John Prine, which includes some of the best songs ever written, like Sam Stone, Spanish Pipedream, and Hello in There. As many on my floor in our high-rise dormitory on the east side of campus, in the time of bell-bottom jeans and psychedelic colors, were playing Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Deep Purple, and the like, I found myself going in an entirely different musical direction. And, before long, I was hooked on John Prine.

Once I hopped on the John Prine train, I never looked back. I hung on to my borrowed copy of John Prine until the fall of 1973, when I had to return that borrowed album, at which point I headed over to the local record store on State Street in Madison (where the special deal was three albums for $10) and I bought my own copy of John Prine, along with Diamonds in the Rough, and Sweet Revenge. And, just like that, I had a new musical hero.

John Prine quickly became as influential as The Beatles were for me. I was lucky enough to get my folks to spot me a few bucks every time a new Beatles record came out, and I bought each and every Beatles record within days of its release. And I even saw The Beatles in Milwaukee on September 4, 1964, when I was just 10 years old. But by 1973, The Beatles werent making any new records, and they werent touring, either. So John Prine filled the void.

Fortunately, getting a ticket to see John Prine wasnt quite as difficult as getting a ticket to see The Beatles. I first saw John Prine in 1974. He was booked for the Schlitz Stage at Summerfest (the annual music festival in Milwaukee) on a warm summer evening. Some folks just stumbled upon this unique singer-songwriter as they were walking through the Summerfest grounds. But not me. I was there to see John Prine.

Since then, Ive seen John Prine a couple dozen times. And each time was truly exceptional. I think that its safe to assume that, if youre reading this, youre probably a John Prine fan, and you probably know what Im talking about.

So, when John died on April 7, 2020, it hit me hard. I never met him, but, somehow, I felt that I knew him. After reading tributes to him from fans and music critics alike, I realized that this was a common effect he had on listeners from around the world. Maybe it was his shy but comfortable stage presence. Maybe it was his self-deprecating humor, or the twang of his voice. Maybe it was the warmth, comedy, and compassion in his lyrics. Maybe it was his gentle activism. Whatever it was, when we lost John Prine, most of us felt like we had lost a dear friend. My first instinct was to revisit his whole discography, starting with John Prine and working my way to TheTree of Forgiveness. But, like most all great things, Johns music always sounds better when shared, so I gathered my three daughters, four of my nephews, two of my brothers-in-law, and a couple of other folks, and we started what we dubbed The John Prine Album Club. Our mission was simply to listen to each John Prine albumone per weekand discuss them together.

And then I realized that, although there is lots of information on John Prine out in the world, there isnt a single resource that discusses his lifes work. Sure, theres content about him all over the internet. Theres a good book about him called John Prine In Spite of Himself, which was written by Eddie Huffman and published in 2015. And, in 2017, John Prine published his own book, Beyond Words. But there isnt a single place to go for insight about his songs and records. So I thought: Maybe I could create that place.

This book is not a definitive biography of John Prine. John Prine, In Spite of Himself is a good place to start if thats what youre looking for. And others may be writing John Prine biographies as I type.

Rather, this is a fan book. Its nothing more or less than a review of John Prines music, written and curated by one John Prine fan, culled from reviews and opinions from 1970 to 2020, along with some of Johns own thoughts about his music. Album by album. One song at a time.

John Prine, as most folks now know, includes some of the classic John Prine songs, and some of the most often played John Prine songs to this day. Its an embarrassment of riches. Illegal Smile, Spanish Pipedream, Hello in There, Sam Stone, Paradise and seven more indelible songs. This is a debut album that should have gone gold within a week of its release. But who knew John Prine then? I didnt. And neither did most of the John Prine fans who exist today.

The story that led to this John Prine debut has a few main characters. Among them: Dave Prine , Roger Ebert , Steve Goodman , and Kris Krisofferson.

Dave Prine was Johns oldest brother. John also had an older brother, Douglas , and a younger brother, Billy . They grew up in Maywood, Illinoisa suburb of Chicago. As is well-documented, John was not a great student, and, as he once said: I couldnt concentrate on anything besides daydreaming. My brother saw this and he saw music as a way of getting through to me. So Dave Prine taught John a few chords on the guitar. From there, John said, it was me sitting there alone in a room singing to the wall.