Last night I was lucky to attend a screening of the concert film/tribute You Got Gold at the Music Box with my friend Web, thanks to the generosity of a stranger with 2 extra tickets to the sold-out screening. It was an excellent and emotional film followed by an interview with John’s wife Fiona Prine. She talked about how invested John was in working with young artists, many of whom played in the film. It was so nice to share the experience with Web, who had recently included John Prine in his article for Block Club, “How Chicago Protest Music Is Meeting the Political Moment.” I love that my chosen city has such amazing music history, and I love that my friend’s articles are always turning me on to more music, art, theater and film.
My family has a strong connection to John Prine’s music. Like John, we have ancestors who were coal miners in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky and love his song “Paradise” for that reason. My mom loved John Prine and Steve Goodman, and often played “Angel From Montgomery” as well as Bonnie Raitt’s definitive version. Mom and I saw John Prine in 1995 at the Skyline Stage at Navy Pier with my friend Ed for the Lost Songs and Mixed Blessings tour. When she died that November I played “Angel From Montgomery” at her funeral. My aunt wrote a bit about this in her excellent blog post from 2017 about the music that she and Uncle Bob have enjoyed throughout their life together: “A Love Song.” I found an old email conversation from that same year when my Uncle Mike shared the Rolling Stone article “Inside the Life of John Prine, the Mark Twain of American Songwriting” with my aunts, sister and cousin. At that time we had a regular email conversation going and talked all about places our family had lived, music and books, and daily lives. That was around the time my uncle gave me some of his vinyl collection.
In 2019, Aimee and I saw John on the tour for his last album, The Tree of Forgiveness, in Appleton when I was visiting to celebrate my birthday. I remember how lively he was, performing a little jig onstage and talking and telling jokes between songs. Less than a year later, John died of complications of COVID. That was the same year that Dad died in November, so the two losses are bound together in my mind. I’m so glad I got to share that experience with my sister.
More geographic connections… Back when I moved to Chicago at the end of 1996, I took a guitar class at the Old Town School of Folk Music where John and Steve Goodman studied and played. I had a hard time with social anxiety and tuning my guitar, but I’m glad I did it. When I first met Jim, he and Web lived near the newest location of the Old Town School in Lincoln Square and we have attended many concerts there. Now we live two towns over from Maywood, where John grew up, and in 2023 I got to visit his adopted home of Nashville with my dear friends Amy, Cindy and Sunny. We spent an afternoon at Grimey’s where I got a photo with the John Prine mural. Nashville was a great city to visit and I can see why he loved it. We had a thoroughly fun time shopping for records and vintage clothes, visiting the farmers market and the Parthenon, playing games and singing karaoke. I would like to go back and hear some live music.
I enjoyed rewatching the below performance from 2018 today. I should play some more John Prine for Simon, whose deep and thoughtful appreciation of music always impresses me. He is cataloguing our CD and record collection, so that’s always a good excuse to pull out our favorite recordings.
Postscript: I saw one of these bumper stickers on the way to the screening…