Skip the Pundits and Headlines for a Moment to Marvel at John Prine's Enduring Magic

The death of John Prine early in the early weeks of the pandemic was a wrenching blow for his many fans among both audiences and fellow musicians.

As I wrote in the weekend curtain raiser, among songwriters I deeply admire, no one is on a higher plane than Prine. Around 1975, just a few years after I began learning guitar and singing, a college roommate, Aron Wolf, introduced me to Prine’s mix of touching, hilarious, folksy, bittersweet compositions. (I sorely miss Aron, who went on to a fantastic NASA career designing interplanetary spacecraft missions and was taken far too soon by cancer.)

Aron and I began playing at Brown University’s coffeehouse and other Providence hangouts. A big chunk of our set list was Prine:

“Please don’t bury me down in that cold, cold ground; I’d rather have you cut me up and pass me all around….”

“Sam Stone was alone, when he popped his last balloon, climbing walls while sitting in a chair….”

“Then the coal company came with the world’s biggest shovel, and they tortured the timber and tore up the land….”

We hit the road to Williams College (some time around 1977) and performed at some coffeehouse there with my brother Jim and a talented guy playing a melodica named Tom Piazza.

Andy Revkin, Tom Piazza, Jim Revkin, Aron Wolf (left to right)

There was no way to know then that Piazza would go on to become a much-lauded writer of novels, television (Treme) and nonfiction, and would in 2018 meet, befriend and travel with Prine. One result was a beautiful on-the-road profile for Oxford American Magazine.

Another is Living in the Present with John Prine, a book that originally was going to be a co-authored Prine memoir. But the musician, like so many people with pre-existing health challenges (he had many), was taken from this world by COVID-19 in April 2020. The book shape-shifted into a captivating, deeply-observed chronicle of the folk singer’s last few years. Piazza beautifully captures what he describes as Prine’s mix of “a sense of well-being, along with a sort of amused nonchalance toward potential disaster.”

This nugget from Prine’s older (and now also departed) brother David gives a taste:

We talked about Prine’s subtle kind of political messaging, including this line from The Great Compromise:

I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn's early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

And of course Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore:

We were joined by my old Breakneck Ridge Revue co-conspirator David Ross (best known as the former director of the Whitney Museum).

Here’s one of our Breakneck Ridge Revue performances of Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” (Breakneck Ridge and the Trouble Sisters):

I hope you enjoy this brief break from Trump’s zone-flooding horror show.

Also consider contributing to The Hello in There Foundation, run by Prine’s family and supporting a heap of fine causes. I chipped in over the weekend.