John Prine meant the world to our family. My wife-to-be Peggy and I went to see John, Steve Goodman, Bill Quateman and Bonnie Koloc at Ravinia Festival just after high school graduation in the Chicago suburbs.
John Prine at Americanafest 2017
We were so excited that I missed the exit on the way home and badly blew curfew. Peggy’s mom was …. judgmental. One of my earliest paid writing gigs was a handwritten review of John’s second album “Diamonds in the Rough.” I praised the album, but pointed out his limited vocal range. Punk. His music was everywhere in our household, and we had to convince our 12-year-old son to join us for a Prine concert in New York. He liked “Space Monkey.” Now a music writer for the Tennessean, he just wrote his own celebration of John.
Brandi Carlile and John Prine on Cayamo
We thought of John as our local musical hero because of shared Chicago ties, but then John moved to Nashville. And a decade later, so did we.
It was coincidence, but the best kind. Suddenly our favorite artist popped up all over town, on stage and in the grocery store. One night a dear friend tipped me off that John was going to hold a secret Christmas party in an hour, and sure enough, there he was with his brother Billy, friends and family in a local sports bar. John liked Christmas.
I had the privilege to host John on our “Speaking Freely” TV show on PBS stations years later and saw firsthand what I had been told so often: He was the same guy on stage as he was in-person.
And then just last fall, my wife and I attended “All the Best,” the magnificent festival he and Fiona Whelan Prine staged in the Dominican Republic. There was a truly special night when he took the stage to perform his first album from start to finish, as a full and incandescent moon was reflected in the waves. For the rest of my life, when I think of John, I’ll think of that moment and those songs.
So thankful for that, and for everything John Prine brought into the lives of everyone who loved his music – and him.
John Prine’s music – and life – have always been marked by courage, compassion and integrity.
Now imagine a music festival just like that.
All the Best, a Prine-curated Sixthman festival in
the Dominican Republic, wrapped up tonight after four days of inspired and
inspiring music from some of the top songwriters in the world, including Prine,
Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Gretchen Peters, Lori McKenna and Brandi
Carlile.
More important, the performers at this festival were hellraisers
and truth tellers, just like their host. When you write a line like “Jesus Christ
died for nothing, I suppose,” you don’t invite the meek to your festival.
Kentucky songwriter Kelsey Waldon said it was a treat to
perform where “people care so much about the lyrics . . . awesome.”
Emmylou Harris and John Prine at the All The Best Festival
12 special moments:
The day after the Country Music Awards featured “Independence Day, Gretchen Peters proudly performed her indelible anthem, smiling broadly and exultantly declaring “My words came out of Dolly Parton’s mouth!”
Throughout the festival, artists covered Prine’s songs to often stirring effect. Perhaps the most moving, though, were Emmylou Harris and Ruby Amanfu’s respective takes on “Angel From Montgomery.” Prine noted that when artists perform the song, they always base it on Bonnie Raitt’s version instead of his.
Much like Prine, Paul Thorn is always wildly entertaining, but then he’ll draw you up short with a song that makes you look at something in a fresh way. “You Might Be Wrong” couldn’t have been more timely.
Given the line-up, the festival was full of songs that reflect the news. Todd Snider joked that surveys indicate that only 50 percent of the audience should like his topical songs, while Steve Earle’s “City of Immigrants” received a rousing response.
In the spirit of the festival, Iris Dement and John Prine performed what appeared to be a thoroughly unrehearsed version of the spouse-swapping tune “Let’s Invite Them Over Tonight.” The real lyrics showed up about 30 seconds in. Pure fun.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – The Dirt Band was a late addition to the line-up, and happily so. It’s hard to imagine a more joyous band than these guys, and that’s been the case for a half-century. Sometimes you want self-reflection . Sometimes you want to dance. The Dirt Band has been around for more than a half-century, but remain as vibrant as ever.
Jimmie Fadden and Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at the All the Best Festival
Keith Sykes performed “You Got Gold,” a number of times during the festival, but added the inside story during a guitar pull at the Breathless Plaza. He and Prine felt so good about the song they had written that they were “overserved” and ended the night being “picked up by two women” – Memphis police officers – who promptly took them to jail.
Tyler Childers’ swift career ascent has been amazing, and he played two crowd-pleasing sets, but the real treat was seeing him cover fellow Kentuckian Prine’s “Yes, I Guess They Oughta Name A Song After You” and “Please Don’t Bury Me
Lori McKenna unveiled a brand new song “In it for Love.” “I’ve only heard it twice myself, she said. She played the near-anthemic song in back-to-back sets and the audience roared. Sometime, somewhere and in the hands of someone to be determined, “In It For Love” is going to be a hit.
Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats played a raucous set on the final night and then Rateliff returned to the stage for a closing segment of Prine songs. Wiping away tears, Rateliff sang “Summer’s End” and was then joined by Prine for a touching “Sam Stone.”
Brandi Carlile was fresh off the Country Music Awards, where she had performed with her new group the Highwomen. Her All the Best set was high energy and compelling, but two solo turns stuck out: Her rendition of the yodel-intensive “Lovesick Blues” and “Highwomen,” the gender-revised version of Jimmy Webb’s classic “Highwayman.”
The finale of John Prine’s All the Best festival
There was much more, including fine sets by Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys, Courtney Marie Andrews, Jason Wilber, Lucinda Williams, Rita Wilson, Senora May, Ruston Kelly, Kristi Rose and Fats Kaplin.
But everything was eclipsed by John Prine’s revisiting his very first album, playing the LP in order, start to finish. This was the astounding debut album that gave us “Sam Stone,” “Angel From Montgomery,” “Paradise,” “Donald and Lydia” and “Hello in There, ” and signaled the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. Prine noted that the album didn’t chart or win any awards, but that it was eventually inducted into the Grammys Hall of Fame along with Neil Young’s Harvest and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. “I’ll take that,” Prine said.
Prine later joked that it took 40 minutes to play the album
and another hour for him to talk about the songs. Of course, that’s what made
it so special: A great American songwriter
standing steps from the ocean, exploring his groundbreaking first recording under
a full moon. Now that’s Paradise.
