John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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An acclaimed singer/songwriter whose literate work flirted with everything from acoustic folk to rockabilly to straight-ahead country, John Prine was born October 10, 1946, in Maywood, IL. Raised by parents firmly rooted in their rural Kentucky background, at age 14 Prine began learning to play the guitar from his older brother while taking inspiration from his grandfather, who had played with Merle Travis. After a two-year tenure in the U.S. Army, Prine became a fixture on the Chicago folk music scene in the late '60s, befriending another young performer named Steve Goodman.

For 1975's Common Sense, Prine turned to producer Steve Cropper, the highly influential house guitarist for the Stax label; while the album's sound shocked the folk community with its reliance on husky vocals and booming drums, it served notice that Prine was not an artist whose work could be pigeonholed, and was his only LP to reach the U.S. Top 100. Steve Goodman took over the reins for 1978's folky Bruised Orange, but on 1979's Pink Cadillac, Prine took another left turn and recorded an electric rockabilly workout produced at Sun Studios by the label's legendary founder, Sam Phillips, and his son Knox.

Following 1980's Storm Windows, Prine was dropped by Asylum Records, and he responded by forming his own label, Oh Boy Records, with the help of longtime manager Al Bunetta. The label's first release was 1984's Aimless Love, and under his own imprint Prine's music thrived, as 1986's country-flavored German Afternoons earned a Grammy nomination in the Contemporary Folk category. After 1988's John Prine Live, he released 1991's Grammy-winning The Missing Years; co-produced by Howie Epstein of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, the album featured guest appearances from Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and Tom Petty and proved to be Prine's biggest commercial success to date, selling nearly 250,000 copies. After making his film debut in 1992's John Mellencamp-directed Falling from Grace, Prine returned in 1995 with Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, also produced by Epstein, which earned him another Grammy nomination.

In 1998, while Prine was working on an album of male/female country duets, he was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, with the cancer forming on the right side of his neck. Prine underwent surgery and radiation treatment for the cancer, and in 1999 was well enough to complete the album, which was released as In Spite of Ourselves and featured contributions from Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Connie Smith, and more. In 2000, Prine re-recorded 15 of his best-known songs (partly to give his voice a workout following his treatment, but primarily so Oh Boy would own recordings of his earlier hits) for an album called Souvenirs, originally issued in Germany but later released in the United States. In 2005, he released Fair & Square, a collection of new songs, followed by a concert tour. Two years later, alongside singer and guitarist Mac Wiseman, Prine issued Standard Songs for Average People, a collection of the two musicians' interpretations of 14 folk and country classics. In Person & on Stage, a collection of performances from various concert tours, appeared in 2010.

by Jason Ankeny, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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Despite some brilliant songs, Prine's followup albums to his stunning debut were uneven until this, his fifth, produced by his friend Steve Goodman. Here, Prine's always finely-tuned sense of absurdity once again collides with his ability to depict pain sympathetically for a whole album, typified by "That's the Way That the World Goes 'Round," a neat statement of his philosophy, and "Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone," perhaps the best depiction ever written of life on the road in the entertainment business.

by William Ruhlmann, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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John Prine went to Sam Phillips' studio in Memphis to make his sixth album, Pink Cadillac, and got some of the Sun Records sound of 1950s rockabilly on a record produced by Phillips' sons Knox and Jerry. (Sam produced two of the tracks himself.) Slapback bass here, a Bo Diddley beat there, and an overall loose feel characterized music that may have been more fun to make than it is to listen to, even though it's quite entertaining. Prine wrote only five of the ten songs, however, and even though the covers were of high caliber – notably Roly Salley's "Killing the Blues" and Arthur Gunter's "Baby Let's Play House," a song Elvis Presley did at Sun – Pink Cadillac was a good idea that went slightly awry in the execution. If Prine had had the songs as well as the studio, it would have been among his best.

by William Ruhlmann, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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With years of experience playing club dates, John Prine has evolved into a very entertaining live performer, and this album, originally a double-LP and now a single CD, presents him at his intimate best, telling funny stories and performing his most impressive material in unadorned arrangements.

by William Ruhlmann, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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Prine took five years between his ninth studio album and this, his tenth – enough time to gather his strongest body of material in more than a decade. From the caustic "All the Best" to the cliche compilation "It's a Big Old Goofy World," Prine's gifts for emotional revelation and off-the-wall humor are on display in abundance, and he's aided by excellent production (courtesy of Heartbreaker Howie Epstein) and strong backup musicians. The Missing Years won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

by William Ruhlmann, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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John Prine's follow-up to his comeback album, The Missing Years, is more of the same in terms of freeing up Prine's idiosyncratic muse and marrying the result to Howie Epstein's top-flight production sound. Fans of the early Prine may find that sound over-produced, but the songs never get lost, and with Prine's typically humorous, off-center view of the world (song titles include "Humidity Built the Snowman" and "He Forgot That It Was Sunday"), it's the songs that count. Actually, this is not quite as strong a collection of material as The Missing Years, but it has its moments, and Prine and Epstein show it off in its best possible light.

by William Ruhlmann, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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Prine's second live album – which also boasts three new studio tracks – finds the singer/songwriter in fine form. Not surprisingly, the concert segment relies heavily on material from 1991's Grammy-winning The Missing Years, including rollicking versions of "Picture Show" and "Daddy's Little Pumpkin," plus an affecting "You Got Gold" and the frequently hilarious "Jesus the Missing Years." Also here: a nine-minute reading of "Lake Marie" that improves on the version that highlighted 1995's Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings; the previously unrecorded "Space Monkey," about a Russian primate who spent 40 years you-know-where and came back to earth after the demise of the Soviet Union; and "Illegal Smile," the ode to marijuana that dates from Prine's 1971 debut LP. The studio tracks tacked onto the end of this album are nothing to write home about, but overall, Live on Tour is a solid collection. Featuring everything from tender folk ballads to rockers packed with Prine's trademark wacky witticisms, it would be a perfect starting point for anyone who has had the misfortune to have not yet encountered this one-of-a-kind artist.

by Jeff Burger, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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In Spite of Ourselves is John Prine's tribute to the music he grew up with – good country songs written by folks like Roger Miller and Jack Clement. It is, at the same time, a golden opportunity for him to collaborate with some of his all-time favorite female vocalists. In the liner notes booklet, Prine tells the story: "I made a list of my favorite girl singers and the first nine I called said 'yes.' I nearly fell over." One of Prine's favorites is Iris DeMent, and her unique vocals grace four of the tracks here, including "(We're Not) The Jet Set," "We Could," and Prine's lone songwriting appearance, "In Spite of Ourselves," a song written for the upcoming Billy Bob Thornton film, Daddy & Them, in which Prine appears. Trisha Yearwood, Connie Smith, Fiona Prine, Melba Montgomery, Emmylou Harris, Delores Keane, Patty Loveless, and Lucinda Williams all share the studio with Prine, creating some mighty powerful duets. From Freddie Hart's "Loose Talk" to Don Everly's "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)," the album manages to create a seamless scrapbook of both old and new songs, artists and memories. Prine's duets are backed by some of the very best musicians available. Buddy Emmons and Dan Dugmore, two incredible pedal steel players, and Sam Bush, Kenny Malone, Jason Wilber, Jim Rooney, and Marty Stuart are just a few of the stellar players featured on the album. Overall, In Spite of Ourselves ranks as one of Prine's finest works, a scrapbook of country classics, interpreted by some of the genres best female vocalists, in duet with one fine American singer and a great songwriter.

by Michael B. Smith, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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In the liner notes to John Prine's 2000 album Souvenirs, he calls the songs he has recorded during his 30-year career "faithful companions." They are indeed warm, friendly, and boldly intimate, whispering secrets to the listener – but at the same time they are growing older and smoothing their youthful edge. In an effort to have his own master recordings of his favorite and most popular songs, Prine re-recorded 15 tracks for release in Germany (as he has always wanted to be popular in Germany), but upon hearing these re-recorded versions Oh Boy Records decided to release them in the U.S. (as Prine has always wanted to be popular there as well). The result is an interesting mix, wherein the historical stories ("Grandpa Was a Carpenter," "The Late John Garfield Blues") and rocking chair reminiscences ("Angel From Montgomery") are recalled with a genuine wisdom of the years, but the songs tinged with Prine's signature cynical smirk ("People Puttin' People Down," "Please Don't Bury Me") have lost some of their cheeky, finger-pointing optimism and almost sound like grumbling. Along with other performers who have tried to regain access to their compositions by re-recording them (it seems everyone from Merle Haggard to Prince has lost original song rights at some point), John Prine's contemporary touches on these old favorites may provide new insights, but the new versions rarely surpass the originals.

by Zac Johnson, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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Never an artist known to push himself harder than necessary, 2005's Fair and Square was John Prine's first album in five years, and his first set dominated by new material since 1995's Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (a live album, a set of covers and a collection of new recordings of older material helped fill the gap). Of course, Prine had a fair amount to occupy him during that decade between new albums, most notably a bout with cancer in 1999, and while by all accounts Prine beat the disease with proper treatment, the man on Fair and Square seems a good bit less scrappy and more contemplative than the guy who cut Prine's most memorable material. The lyric sheet for Fair and Square reads like classic John Prine, with plenty of sly regular-guy wit and pithy observations on the state of life ("Crazy as a Loon"), love ("She Is My Everything") and the world around us ("Some Humans Ain't Human" and "My Darlin' Hometown"), but the spare, simple production (by Prine and engineer Gary Paczosa) and the rueful tone of Prine's vocals suggest a man who is just a bit weary, though that seems to be not a matter of health as much as advancing maturity and the world around him (with "Some Humans Ain't Human" explicitly addressing the War in Iraq amidst other recent failures of compassion). It's significant that the disc's "bonus tracks" are easily the most upbeat – the funny henpecked husband's tale of "Other Side Of Town" and "Safety Joe," a witty warning about the dangers of too much caution. There's plenty of fine music on Fair and Square (Jerry Douglas and Alison Krauss are among the stellar pickers on-board) and there still isn't anyone who writes quite like John Prine, but for the most part this album is an unusually spare and subdued effort from an artist who usually can't help but crack a smile; with any luck he'll be feeling a bit more hopeful next time out, though this is still great music for a quiet afternoon.

by Mark Deming, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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A die-hard fan could, by now, accuse John Prine of coasting and have a good argument. Of the few albums he's released since the turn of the century, only one, 2005's Fair & Square, contained new material, and that one came only after a songwriting hiatus of about a decade. Why Prine has virtually given up on producing new material is known, one would assume, only to him, and that's a shame, because in Prine's prime, the '70s and '80s, he was not just prolific but consistently brilliant. In Person & On Stage, it should come as no surprise given the title, that this is yet another rehash, Prine's third official live album, with nary a new tune aboard. Cut at different shows with guitarist/mandolinist Jason Wilber and bassist Dave Jacques, both of whom also provide background vocals, the collection also features a number of guest artists, among them Iris DeMent, Josh Ritter, and Emmylou Harris, who is her usual arresting self on "Angel from Montgomery," a track from Prine's 1971 debut that has since become quite possibly his most covered composition. Prine also draws from that debut with updated renditions of "Spanish Pipedream" (which opens the album), "Paradise" (which closes it), and "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You into Heaven Anymore," but he doesn't restrict himself to older material, offering four songs from the above-mentioned Fair & Square, as well. Prine's performance is solid – his voice has gotten grainier over the years, but his delivery is no less impassioned. Now if only he would get back to writing.

by Jeff Tamarkin, AMG

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John Prine: CD Collection (1978-2011)

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When John Prine released his self-titled debut album in 1971, it seemed as if a major new songwriter had miraculously appeared out of nowhere (or Chicago, which to many folks seemed like roughly the same thing at that time), and this set of early Prine recordings suggests that his gifts as a writer appeared fully formed without a long gestation period. The Singing Mailman Delivers includes Prine's first demo tape, cut at a Chicago radio station in August 1970, and a recording of the songwriter on-stage at a Windy City folk club three months later, both put to tape when Prine was still holding down a day job as a letter carrier. The studio tape is as simple as can be, just Prine and his guitar, and the voice has a bit less of the drawl he would affect later on (which always seemed a bit suspect from a boy born and raised in Illinois), but the songs, all but one of which would appear on his early albums, make clear he already had a singular lyrical voice – witty, literate yet plain-spoken, and mature beyond his then-24 years – and he could deliver his material with a casual confidence that was winning. (The one otherwise unrecorded song, "A Star, A Jewel, and a Hoax," sounds more like a fragment than a fully formed song, and it's no tragedy that it was lost to history until now.) The live tape has a bassist backing Prine on a few songs, but otherwise sounds quite similar, though he was already attracting a devoted audience (they can sing along on several of his tunes) and Prine appears to be having a ball, cracking wise between tunes, bantering with the audience, and breaking out his Tex Ritter impression for the final verse of "The Great Compromise." Still, while Prine doesn't betray a bit of pretension in front of an audience, he can also venture into more serious material like "Hello in There" or "Great Society Conflict Veteran's Blues" (an early draft of "Sam Stone") and gently but firmly take his listeners with him. The Singing Mailman Delivers doesn't do much to rewrite Prine's early history, but it confirms he revealed a remarkable talent as soon as he put his mind to writing songs, and it's an entertaining addition to his catalog for longtime fans.

by Mark Deming, AMG