Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

In a career that spanned five decades, John Prine gave us a treasure trove of songs — some that make you laugh, others that make you cry, all that make you think. Prine is widely regarded as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, a favorite of peers like Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, the latter of whom said in 2009, "Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mind-trips to the nth degree." Prine also inspired, influenced and encouraged artists like Bonnie Raitt, Iris DeMent, Jason Isbell, Kacey Musgraves and Margo Price.

Prine was born in Maywood, Ill., a near-west suburb of Chicago, in 1946. After serving in the U.S. Army in the mid-1960s, Prine returned to Chicago and found work as a mail carrier in the village of Westchester, another west-side suburb. Prine was writing songs as a hobby, but eventually started playing open mic nights; soon Prine was filling the city's small folk venues and being booked for back-to-back nights. That's where esteemed Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert recalled, "out of sheer blind luck," he discovered Prine. In October 1970, Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times, "country-folk singers aren't exactly putting rock out of business. But Prine is good.”

As Ebert put it in that early review, "Prine's lyrics work with poetic economy to sketch a character in just a few words." For example, "Angel From Montgomery" sketches a woman who's bored in her life and marriage; "Spanish Pipe Dream" paints the picture of a happy relationship based on the couple's common ideals; "Sam Stone" depicts a wounded war veteran who self-medicates with morphine.

Ebert’s review effectively catapulted Prine's career. And through Prine’s friendship with fellow Chicago singer-songwriter Steve Goodman, Prine also got the attention of Kris Kristofferson, who helped Prine get signed to Atlantic Records, which released Prine's self-titled 1971 debut album.

Although a Chicago son, Prine's voice — long before he relocated to Nashville — betrayed a lilting Southern accent, and that was no put-on. Prine's parents migrated north from Kentucky's coal country, but returned to the family's Appalachian hometown every summer, trips that filled young John Prine with innumerable happy memories. That Kentucky town, which was eventually bulldozed for strip-mining operations, was called Paradise, a place immortalized in Prine's idyllic song of the same name. That song is our Classic Americana pick of the week.

In 2022, officials in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, renamed a regional park in Prine’s honor.

Over the last two decades of his life, Prine faced a number of health issues, including two bouts with cancer, and a stent installation to fend off a risk of stroke. Sadly, in March 2020, John Prine contracted COVID-19, and he died from complications caused by the disease on April 7, 2020, at the age of 73.

Much loved and ever humble, Prine’s family and friends cherished their relationships with him. "John just makes you happy," Iris DeMent told The Bitter Southerner in 2016. "He makes people feel good. There are a lot of people who have accomplished a lot in life who people put on pedestals, and they walk around in that safe, little, pedastal-ed zone. John's not like that. When you're walking around with John, he puts you on a pedestal. And it's a sincere thing. And I'll get choked up saying that because it's just true. Because he's just got a loving heart."

External Links

John Prine – official site