John Prine: American Legend
Through no wisdom of my own but out of sheer blind luck, I walked into the Fifth Peg, a folk club on West Armitage, one night in 1970 and heard a mailman from Westchester singing. This was John Prine.
He sang his own songs. That night I heard "Sam Stone," one of the great songs of the century. And "Angel from Montgomery." And others. I wasn't the music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, but I went to the office and wrote an article. [ below ] And that, as fate decreed, was the first review Prine ever received.
From the Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, Oct. 9, 1970:SINGING MAILMAN WHO DELIVERS
A POWERFUL MESSAGE
IN A FEW WORDS
By Roger Ebert
While "digesting Reader's Digest" in a dirty book store, John Prine tells us in one of his songs, a patriotic citizen came across one of those little American flag decals.He stuck it on his windshield and liked it so much he added flags from the gas station, the bank and the supermarket, until one day he blindly drove off the road and killed himself. St. Peter broke the news:
"Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore; It's already overcrowded from your dirty little war."
Lyrics like this are earning John Prine one of the hottest underground reputations in Chicago these days. He's only been performing professionally since July, he sings at the out-of-the-way Fifth Peg, 858 W. Armitage, and country-folk singers aren't exactly putting rock out of business. But Prine is good.
He appears on stage with such modesty he almost seems to be backing into the spotlight. He sings rather quietly, and his guitar work is good, but he doesn't show off. He starts slow. But after a song or two, even the drunks in the room begin to listen to his lyrics. And then he has you.
He does a song called "The Great Society Conflict Veteran's Blues," for example, that says more about the last 20 years in America than any dozen adolescent acid-rock peace dirges. It's about a guy named Sam Stone who fought in Korea and got some shrapnel in his knee.
But the morphine eased the pain, and Sam Stone came home "with a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back." That's Sam Stone's story, but the tragedy doesn't end there. In the chorus, Prine reverses the point of view with an image of stunning power:
"There's a hole in Daddy's arm
Where all the money goes..."You hear lyrics like these, perfectly fitted to Priine's quietly confident style and his ghost of a Kentucky accent, and you wonder how anyone could have so much empathy and still be looking forward to his 24th birthday on Saturday.
So you talk to him, and you find out that Prine has been carryng mail in Westchester since he got out of the Army three years ago. That he was born in Maywood, and that his parents come from Paradise, Ky. That his grandfather was a miner, a part-time preacher, and used to play guitar with Merle Travis and Ike Everly (the Everly brothers' father). And that his brother Dave plays banjo, guitar and fiddle, and got John started on the guitar about 10 years. ago.
Prine has been writing songs just as long, and these days he works on new ones while delivering mail. His wife, Ann Carole, says she finds scraps of paper around the house with maybe a word or a sentence on them and a month later the phrase will turn up in a new song.
Prine's songs are all original, and he only sings his own. They're nothing like the work of most young composers these days, who seem to specialize in narcissistic tributes to themselves. He's closer to Hank Willilams than to Roger Williams, closer to Dylan than to Ochs. "In my songs," he says, "I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message."
That's what hapens in Prine's "Old folks," one of the most moving songs I've heard. It's about an elderly retired couple sitting at home alone all day, looking out the screen door on the back proch, marking time until death. They lost a son in Korea: "Don't know what for; guess it doesn't matter anymore." The chorus asks you, the next time you see a pair of "ancient empty eyes," to say "hello in there...hello."
Prine's lyrics work with poetic economy to sketch a character in just a few words. In "Angel from Montgomery," for example, he tells of a few minutes in the thoughts of a woman who is doing the housework and thinking of her husband: "How the hell can a person go to work in the morning, come back in the evening, and have nothing to say?"
Prine can be funny, too, and about half his songs are. He does one about getting up in the morning. A bowl of oatmeal tried to stare him down, and won. But "if you see me tonight with an illegal smile - It don't cost very much, and it lasts a long while. - Won't you please tell the Man I didn't kill anyone - Just trying to have me some fun."
Prine's first public appearance was at the 1969 Maywood Folk Music Festival: "It's a hell of a festival, but nobody cares about folk music." He turned up at the Old Town School of Folk Music in early 1970 after hearing Ray Tate on TV. He did a lot of hootenannys at the Fifth Peg and at the Saddle Club on North Av., and the Fifth Peg booked him for Sunday nights in July and August.
In those two months, the word got around somehow that here was an extraordinary new composer and performer. His crowds grew so large that the Fifth Peg is now presenting him on Friday and Saturday nights; his opening last weekend was a full house by word-of-mouth. He had a lot of new material, written while he was on reserve duty with the Army in September.
There's one, for example, called "The Great Compromise," about a girl he once dated who was named America. One night at the drive-in movie, while he was going for popcorn, she jumped into a foreign sports car and he began to suspect his girl was no lady. "I could of beat up that fellow," he reflects in his song, "but it was her that hopped into his car."
A concert with John's friend Steve Goodman.
31 Comments
Leave a comment
The Webby Awards
Person of the Year
Best Blog: Natl. Soc. of Newspaper Columnists
One of the year's best blogs -- Time
Twelve months, 102 million views at RogerEbert.com.
Year's best blog: Am. Assn. of Sunday and Feature Editors
Buy from Amazon.comBuy from Barnes & Noble
Buy from Borders
___________________
I've been a huge Prine fan since I was a kid.
He's an incredible songwriter.
Thank you so much for this loving tribute to the genius of John Prine. I have been fortunate to see him perform several times over the years - and the pure joy he has on stage as a performer makes it memorable every time.
I began listening to him back in the 70's and have met him a few times over the years.
He truly is an American Legend - (I knew we had more in common than movies Mr. Ebert = )
Thanks again.
I think you mean Iris DeMent. :)
Ebert: I did! I did!
I've been a long time fan of John Prine and a recent fan of yours, between this and giving me back emily dickinson today -- you made my world a little less lonely.
thank you!
Ebert: I've been reading Emily today. Was ever a poet more profound and so concise at the same time?
How cool is that to have given Prine his first critical break! I can just see you there in 1970, having your mind blown.
-- But ain't we got love!
God, Ebert, you've been incredibly inspired and inspiring recently. The photo of the owl flying after prey you pointed to earlier was the best thing I've seen all week.
It's fitting that you wrote the first review of John Prime. I love both of you guys, and reading you writing some 40 years ago about some of the greatest songs of the 20th century -- Prine's first album is fantastic -- is a real treat.
Keep writing and tweeting. You're invaluable.
Minor point: the singer is the great Iris DeMent, not "Joan" as you have typoed in your intro.
Thanks again.
Ebert: I knew that! I knew it! I was thinking of the writer Joan Dupont. Why?
man...i'm sure glad someone posted that esquire article the other day. i always looked out for your movie reviews...they were solid and on the money. i've also been keeping up with your posts to twitter ever since and have read some of the other things you've been busy posting to the internet. i see there's a good bit i missed but i mean to catch up. thanks for the john prine...he's been a favorite of mine for a time now. to paraphrase another songwriter i like -- long may you write.
I hear you on Prine. He taught me that songs are haiku. I blogged about him a few months ago just so I could draw a picture of him:
http://www.honoluluagonizer.com/?p=176#comments
Ebert: Burl, I just tweeted that. You hit in something very important: He's the real thing.
Considering how many documentaries have been made of Dylan, Seeger, Rolling Stones, I wish someone would take a chance on Prine.
His debut album was the besst thing to come out of country folk.
Roger,
Considering your admiration of Leonard COhen, it would be great if you did a journal entry on him.
Besides Dylan, and probably Pete Seeger, I can't think of anyone who made such beautiful music.
I am tickled to learn that you wrote John Prine's first review!
When I met my husband-to-be almost 25 years ago, he had a whole pile of John Prine records. I'd never heard of Prine, but I figured I'd better start listening. I was immediately hooked, and I think I might be a bigger fan now than my husband is! Prine's songs that made me cry or laugh back then still make me cry or laugh today.
I met John Prine after a show he did at the Belcourt in Nashville to benefit Gilda's Club about a year and a half ago. He was still as humble as a mailman (and kinder than mine).
Who knows, you telling the world about him in 1970 might be the reason a lot of us have heard of him today. Either way, thanks Mr. Ebert.
One of the great friendships of my adult life was cemented by the accidental discovery of a shared love of John Prine. I'm impressed by how well the review from 1970 holds up.
What a great review and such a fortuitous stumble that was. Brilliant, on both of your parts. I'm currently recovering from a night out seeing one of John Prine's heirs to the folk wisdom throne, Todd Snider. If I might make a musical suggestion, I'd highly recommend you look up some of Todd's music.
I discovered John Prine about two years ago. He is an incredible songwriter, and doesn't get the recognition he deserves.
I supported myself as a singer/songwriter for a number of years and most of my closest friends are still in the business. We ALL wanted to be (and still want to be) John Prine. I enjoyed reading the article you wrote about him; it perfectly describes Prine and at the same time gives us a glimpse of the talent and narrative voice you already possessed forty years ago.
One of my favorite Prine lyrics is from "All the Best": "I guess your love, is like a Christmas card, you decorate a tree, you throw it in the yard,"
Thanks Roger.
It was great reading the first review of John Prine and his music. I saw him just last night here in New Jersey. He was as good then as he was when I first saw him perform more than thirty five years ago.
Thank you too, for all of the enjoyment of watching and reading your reviews.
I would like to thank the Roger Ebert of 1970 for bringing John Prine to the public's attention & the 2010 Roger Ebert for posting this. I got to meet Prine back when i was a kid. Someone said "you should never meet your heroes, you'll only be disappointed" not so with Prine. Thanks, Roger for honoring musical/poet treasures like Prine, Leonard Cohen & Steve Goodman.
What a great review!
I know you are an exacting note taker and I'm sure you've always been, so reading the "early" versions of song names and lyrics is realy special.
I'm so glad the Esquire piece led me to your journal. Thank you for sharing it with all of us.
About twenty years ago, my college roommate played a John Prine tape for me and I thought, "Why isn't this guy the world's most famous songwriter?" Ever since, the word "underrated" brings Prine irresistibly to mind.
Thanks for spreading the word!
(And how about that Greg Brown?)
The last time i saw Prine was several years ago in Houston. Iris was playing with him; they are a great duo. I bought tickets as soon as they went on sale and was about 6 rows back from stage front and center. When i got to the concert i wondered why i could not get seats closer - about halfway through the show, John said he had been to Houston a short time ago to MD Anderson for cancer treatments...he thought they were going to take out his voice box. He was so thankful for the doctors and nurses that he gave away the first 5 rows of tickets to them - needless to say after that i was just glad to be at the concert. Prine's the greatest ps check out Paul Thorn
How extraordinary it must have been to discover Prine so early in his career (and to be the first to review him!). Thanks for the time travel, Roger. Wonderful, as always.
Thanks for the reminder of where our modern poets come from and how much hard work and dedication and passage of time is required in the process.
It's impossible to have a "favorite" Prine song, I think, but it may be that while "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore" speaks to a national issue, as does "The Great Compromise," Prine's legacy may have been earned in "Paradise," which has become a rallying cry on the level of "This Land Is Your Land" for millions of people working to save the tormented communities in and around predatory coal operations.
Mr. Prine's portrait of a devastated Kentucky coal community is an overlay for more than 500 Appalachian mountains and a thousand miles of streams, countless communities, homesteads and family cemeteries obliterated in the relentless search for more coal and more profit. "Paradise" is, in short, an American anthem by an American original.
John Prine is an American treasure as are you, yourself, Mr. Ebert. Thanks for highlighting the nexus you shared on a long and fruitful road.
I was born the year you wrote that review!
I went to a John Prine show years ago with the opening act of Todd Snider. I'd never heard of either of them, now I'm fans of both. My main memory of that great show was that the next morning when I woke up because the phone was ringing, it was 9/11/2001.
Hello Mr. Ebert,
I love your article on John Prine. I have been looking for an article written by my brother, Roy (Elroy) Hamilton, also from the early 70's. He was a free-lance writer and I recall that he had interviewed John Prine and had an article published. I cannot find a reference to it and would so love to find it. He passed away in 1993. Do you recall such an article published in one of the Chicago papers' magazines? I am planning to attend John Prine's concert/fund-raiser this week in Maywood.
Thanks,
Janet (Hamilton) Kozak
Thanks Roger for posting your story about John Prime from so long ago. It was because of your article which influenced me to go out and purchase his self titled debut record. That was two weeks ago and I have not stopped listening to it since...Fantastic! An incredible journey everytime I listen to it....Thanks again and I love your work! I hope you are able to make it up to Toronto for T.I.F.F in Sept!! :)
Check out his performance of "Lake Marie" on Elvis Costello's "Spectacle". It is absolutely mesmerizing. What a songwriter.
John Prine is THE American troubadour. And I love reading about what others have discovered from all his songs that hit home the hardest.
John is the Ali of songwriters...guaranteed to knock you out...with a feather!
Here is my interview with him while he was traveling through the sunflowers of Wichita, KS.
http://thecollegecrowddigsme.blogspot.com/2007/06/interview-john-prine.html
Somehow...it seems right that an observer of life as yourself) should acknowledge another observer.
Good stuff!
Thanks for reminding me of his birthday. I remember lying in my living room floor with headphones on, listening to the Great Compromise, when it first hit me what the hell he was talking about. If I wasn't already in love with John Prine, that moment sealed the deal. He is a genius who gets so little recognition. I love you, Roger Ebert for reminding me every so often to remember John and Steve for their contributions to my life and the lives of so many others. Keep up the good work.
Great review, from when I was 9 months old. My wife's family has turned me on to John Prine, with her dad playing, and teaching me, many of his songs on guitar.
I hope the original review that was printed in the paper was edited for spelling, typos, etc.
Great review, from when I was 9 months old. My wife's family has turned me on to John Prine, with her dad playing, and teaching me, many of his songs on guitar.
I hope the original review that was printed in the paper was edited for spelling, typos, etc.