John Prine Revisited at 80

Jim DeRogatis (0:00)

Hey there, if you're listening to this and you support us on Patreon, you can hear it via the Patreon page ad free.

You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week we're paying tribute to the great John Prine, in honor of what would have been his 80th birthday. I'm Jim DeRogatis.

Greg Kot (0:30)

And I'm Greg Kot. We'll dissect his debut album with author Erin Osmon. But first we're going to revisit his last interview on Sound Opinions from 2018

SPEAKER_3 (0:40)

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SPEAKER_4 (1:00)

I was visiting a friend a few years ago.

I attended a neighbor's block party. And just as I arrived, the band broke into Jailhouse Rock. And then someone pointed out to me that the lead singer was your convicted ex-governor, Rob Lagojevich, who reminded us that he had 2,900 days to learn that song. And that was my quintessential Chicago moment.

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312 Beer. It's a Chicago thing.

Erin Osmon (1:34)

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SPEAKER_4 (1:40)

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Jim DeRogatis (1:48)

You know, you're right, Greg. We were fortunate to have John Prine on the show when he released his last album, The Tree of Forgiveness. Only 2 years later, we lost him after he contracted COVID, those dark days of the pandemic. His death was a huge loss to music fans.

And it's been marked a few times in recent years. There's the concert documentary, You Got Gold, which memorialized a Prine tribute concert at the Ryman in Nashville, Prine's adopted home. And this week, it's been Chicago's turn with a bunch of events celebrating what would have been Prine's 80th birthday on October 10

Greg Kot (2:29)

Yeah, well deserved, Jim. Many events and much to celebrate. Flat out one of the best songwriters of the last 50 years.

Jim DeRogatis (2:37)

Never hugely popular, but the songwriter's songwriter.

Greg Kot (2:41)

Well, Prine had many fans, including Bob Dylan. You know, the classic Dylan line is Prine's stuff is pure Prussian existentialism. Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree.

I ran that one by Prine once and he was just laughing about it. He goes, I'm not even sure what that what that means. But, you know, but the blend, the blend of humor, poignance, surrealism, you know, plus that plain spoken empathy for regular folks, you know, just trying to get by, much like Prine himself when he was delivering mail in Maywood, you know, a suburb of Chicago. He was writing songs while delivering the mail, you know, writing them in his head and became part of the foundational member of that Old Town School of Folk Music scene that emerged in Chicago in the late 60s, late 60s, early 70s, Steve Goodman, Bonnie Kolak, Dozens More, 18 albums since 1971, right? And then the cancer diagnosis in 1998 He had surgery that affected his ability to speak, but he was able, he recovered from that. The career continued.

Jim DeRogatis (3:48)

And you will hear that as you listen to our chat with him, you know, the roughness in the vocals, right? But somehow it sort of suited him. I mean, he was an everyman, he was a working class hero.

And I would argue, Mr. Kot, that he was a proto-punk rock, you know. By starting Oh Boy Records, the indie label he launched in 84, you know, when the industry didn't have any use for him anymore, he was not going to let that stop him. He was going to go his own way, do it his way. Welcome to the show, John.

John Prine (4:20)

Thanks. Good to be here.

Greg Kot (4:21)

So, John, let's start at the beginning of your career. I mean, you're working as this postal carrier in your 20s, and during this time, you're writing these amazing multi-layered songs. How did that work?

John Prine (4:32)

Not to put down the job of a mailman, but once you know that route, there's nothing you're like in a library with no books. All day long, you got all this time on your hands to think about stuff. It was a perfect... I need to be doing something else when I'm writing.

I can't be thinking that I'm actually a writer in some area, or I'm going to write a song today. Only once did I deliver the mail to the wrong street. Every house on the wrong street.