John Prine Gone. Covid-19.

[PoliTalker]

"Prine had been in the limelight more than ever in recent years, as he became a hero to younger singer-songwriters and resumed his recording career after a long layoff with 2018’s “The Tree of Forgiveness,” his first album in 13 years.

He was named a recipient of a lifetime achievement Grammy in December, and was acknowledged at the January ceremony as Bonnie Raitt serenaded him with “Angel from Montgomery,” a signature song that she first recorded in 1974. “My friend and hero John Prine, who’s sitting right over there, wrote ‘Angel From Montgomery’ and so many other songs that changed my life,” Raitt said on the telecast as he smiled.

Prine had been an active touring artist in recent years, and performed his final Los Angeles area concert Oct. 1, where he sang his own version of “Angel,” among other classics. He returned to L.A. and participated in a salute to Willie Nelson sponsored by the Americana Music Association at the Troubadour the night before the Grammys. (See videos from both recent appearances, below.)

Prine was never a huge seller: The top-charting record of his early career, 1975’s “Common Sense,” peaked at No. 66, and he did not reach the American top 10 until 2018. But he was universally recognized by his peers as a gifted and distinctive songsmith who put his numbers across in a furry drawl that mated rich homespun humor, sharp narrative detail and deep warmth and poignancy.

He burst out of the Chicago folk music scene, where he played club shows while he worked by day as a mail carrier, in the early ‘70s. He received his first major break when Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert walked out of a movie screening and stumbled upon Prine’s set at the local club the Fifth Peg.

“Somebody told him to go in the backroom and listen to this kid,” Prine recalled on NPR in 2018. “I was the kid. And he wrote a full page – ‘Singing Mailman Delivers the Message,’ I think that was the headline…and I never had an empty seat after that.”

His greatest stroke of good fortune came after Prine’s close friend and Chicago folk music contemporary Steve Goodman brought Kris Kristofferson, whose Quiet Knight shows Goodman was opening, to an impromptu late-night performance at another local club. Impressed, Kristofferson later called Prine on stage for three songs at a date at New York’s Bitter End. Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler offered Prine a contract the next day.

“It really was a Cinderella story, truly,” Prine told Billboard in 2017."

He will be remembered in many American homes.

[TOP]

RIP John...

Vodka and ginger ale...now know as a John Prine

[PoliTalker]

""Paradise" is a song written by John Prine for his father, and recorded for his 1971 debut album, John Prine. Prine also re-recorded the song for his 1986 album, German Afternoons. The song is about the devastating impact of strip mining for coal, whereby the top layers of soil are blasted off with dynamite or dug away with steam shovels to reach the coal seam below." wiki

[Legion]

He was old and sick to begin with. I doubt that the Chinese disease was the cause of death.

[volsrock]

"Prine had been in the limelight more than ever in recent years, as he became a hero to younger singer-songwriters and resumed his recording career after a long layoff with 2018’s “The Tree of Forgiveness,” his first album in 13 years.

He was named a recipient of a lifetime achievement Grammy in December, and was acknowledged at the January ceremony as Bonnie Raitt serenaded him with “Angel from Montgomery,” a signature song that she first recorded in 1974. “My friend and hero John Prine, who’s sitting right over there, wrote ‘Angel From Montgomery’ and so many other songs that changed my life,” Raitt said on the telecast as he smiled.

Prine had been an active touring artist in recent years, and performed his final Los Angeles area concert Oct. 1, where he sang his own version of “Angel,” among other classics. He returned to L.A. and participated in a salute to Willie Nelson sponsored by the Americana Music Association at the Troubadour the night before the Grammys. (See videos from both recent appearances, below.)

Prine was never a huge seller: The top-charting record of his early career, 1975’s “Common Sense,” peaked at No. 66, and he did not reach the American top 10 until 2018. But he was universally recognized by his peers as a gifted and distinctive songsmith who put his numbers across in a furry drawl that mated rich homespun humor, sharp narrative detail and deep warmth and poignancy.

He burst out of the Chicago folk music scene, where he played club shows while he worked by day as a mail carrier, in the early ‘70s. He received his first major break when Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert walked out of a movie screening and stumbled upon Prine’s set at the local club the Fifth Peg.

“Somebody told him to go in the backroom and listen to this kid,” Prine recalled on NPR in 2018. “I was the kid. And he wrote a full page – ‘Singing Mailman Delivers the Message,’ I think that was the headline…and I never had an empty seat after that.”

His greatest stroke of good fortune came after Prine’s close friend and Chicago folk music contemporary Steve Goodman brought Kris Kristofferson, whose Quiet Knight shows Goodman was opening, to an impromptu late-night performance at another local club. Impressed, Kristofferson later called Prine on stage for three songs at a date at New York’s Bitter End. Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler offered Prine a contract the next day.

“It really was a Cinderella story, truly,” Prine told Billboard in 2017."

He will be remembered in many American homes.

He was 73 had cancer, cell carcinoma of the lung and a cancer tumor removed from the side of his neck a while back...but sure blame it all on Covid-19 just so you can make his death political..u are a sick POS

[PoliTalker]

This one is about the Vietnam War:

"There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes..."

[PoliTalker]

And who could forget the world-famous...

Illegal Smile:

[moon]

Sad. R.I.P.

[PoliTalker]

Here's a poignant one he left us with:

[volsrock]

Sad. R.I.P.

All old people die! Does this shock you