R.I.P. John Prine 1946-2020 dies of Covid-19*

Here's the link-

 

When, hopefully, John comes out of this he will have some chuckle at the fact that he had 13 albums in the US iTunes album chart on April fools day, including two in the top 40.

 

The man beat cancer twice..
I have faith he can kick civil butt !!!
Come on John...

 

John is tougher than a $2 steak. He has to pull through this.

 

Listened to my Atlantic vinyl today--so fine. Such humor and biting wit...Bruised Orange on Arista vinyl tomorrow.

Diamonds in the Rough



Sweet Revenge

 

Steve Goodman apparently told him he had to go back because there were too many songs left to write and these crazy days are providing even more fodder.

 

Steve may have been John's most sensitive producer--to John the musician...his production presence on Bruised Orange is immeasurable.
Steve says, you ain't goin' nowhere.

We need John Prine now more than ever.

 

One of the weird twists of this is that this Colbert clip making the rounds on social media is making thousands of people (at least) aware of John who had never heard of him before. Nothing new on Twitter from either John's or Fiona's accounts today. Hoping that no news really is good news.

I need to play another JP album tonight -- maybe one I haven't listened to in a while, like German Afternoons or Fair and Square. They're all great in their own way, so it's hard to pick. Maybe Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, since the opening track, New Train, is the kind of upbeat thing I need right now.

 

From what I've read about the coronavirus, once you go on a ventilator, there are typically two outcomes:

1. there is a continued decline and the patient dies within a few days.

2. the patient stabilizes and then remains on a ventilator for 7-10 days.

It has been 2 days since Prine was put on a ventilator, and his wife has indicated that his conditioned has stabilized. So, hopefully that means that he is in the "remain on a ventilator for 7-10 days" category. Which would explain why we haven't heard any updates.

 

Bruised Orange, Arista vinyl on the TT today.



Bruised Orange is regarded as one of Prine's strongest collection of songs and received generally positive reviews when it was released. Writing in Rolling Stone in 1978, Jay Cocks proclaimed that "Steve Goodman is likely the best and certainly the most congenial producer Prine has ever had" and added "No matter when you play it, Bruised Orange carries the chill of Midwest autumn beyond autobiography...into a kind of personal pop mythology."
-wiki
Bruised Orange - Wikipedia

 

Hopefully he'll pull through. It's remarkable even that his condition has improved over a few days ago, as it shows that even with serious underlying conditions and advanced age, you can still beat the virus. Prine is particularly high-risk with his underlying conditions, as the virus is primarily an issue for the lungs, and Prine has had cancer twice, including lung cancer, and even had parts of a lung removed.

 

With the renewed interest in John, I hope Warners Music, or whatever it is calling itself, gets John’s Atlantic catalog back in production on CD and LP. It’s been some years since anything other than the debut has been available. I lost my complete original vinyl collection in a flood years ago, but I’ll take CDs. Beat this virus, John!

 

I know you meant Asylum vinyl for Bruised Orange

 

The same with the Asylum Records catalog as the Oh Boy license expired a long time ago.

 

I did...thanks. I don't know why I mix those two up in my head. They are vaguely similar sounding I guess.

 

I was not aware that Prine was licensing the use of the Asylum masters. I thought/assumed he had purchased them outright when he started Oh Boy. Do you have any more information on the deal, specifically its length?

 

The rights did revert back to Asylum as soon as these discs went out of print years ago and as a matter of fact, the Rhino anthology credits Warner Bros. as the owners of the Asylum masters, and in the case of Steve Goodman's Asylum catalog, on the Morello/Cherry Red twofer of his first 2 Asylum albums states that Cherry Red licensed from Warner Bros. in the UK, while in the US, it is apparently Red Pajamas/BMG that owns the rights to these albums.

 

One about a beloved artist like Prine? Hell yes.

 

Thanks. I should have noticed that on "Great Days"!

 

Exactly right.

 

2 days? I thought he was intubated and place on a ventilator a week ago.

 

He and his wife announced that they had coronavirus last month. He was hospitalized on Thursday and was placed on a ventilator Saturday night. His wife announced on Monday that he was stable.

 

ok, intubated and placed on a ventilator 5 days ago.

 

Getting even more into John in the next days of isolation:

Already spun:

John Prine debut
Diamonds In The Rough
Sweet Revenge
Bruised Orange


In no particular order:

The Missing Years
The Singing Mailman Delivers
Lost Dogs-Mixed Blessings
Storm Windows
Tree Of Forgiveness..always

 

Personally I'm working on my language skills to prepare for my first post-isolation trip!