TO LIVE IN Nashville is to love John Prine, so it never sat right how quarantine robbed the late singer, songwriter, and hometown hero of a proper in-person memorial when he died of Covid complications in April of 2020. Prine finally got the wake he deserved this week in Nashville with a string of celebratory concerts titled “You Got Gold,” which featured an all-star, cross-generational casts of admirers covering songs and exchanging anecdotes about the man.
On Sunday, performers and presenters remembered Prine’s generous spirit and the way he modeled being a decent human on top of his talents. “This is the type of songwriter you should be — this is the type of man you should be,” John Paul White recalled of his encounters with Prine, before turning in a solo acoustic rendition of “Far From Me.”
Elsewhere, Steve Earle offered a rowdy take on “That’s the Way the World Goes Round,” Lucius captivated with sublime harmonies on “You Got Gold,” Gillian Welch and David Rawlings chilled with “Hello in There,” and the inspired pairing of Valerie June and Nathaniel Rateliff rollicked their way through “In Spite of Ourselves.” Later in the night, R&B cult figure Swamp Dogg gave a sprawling, impassioned take on “Sam Stone” that included a spiel on homeless veterans, further driving home Prine’s original point about the vulnerability of those returning from war.
On Monday — what would have been Prine’s 75th birthday — standards like “Angel From Montgomery” off Prine’s eponymous 1971 debut (covered first by Bonnie Raitt on her 1974 LP Streetlights and performed again, with Brandi Carlile, to Monday night’s reverent standing-room audience) spoke to his music’s timelessness, while material from his 2018 sign-off Tree of Forgivenessevidenced its cross generational reach. “I Have Met My Love Today” was rendered as a duet between veteran crooner Chris Isaak and younger counterpart Nicole Atkins, and “Summer’s End” was tackled with aplomb by gifted New Orleanian singer and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla.
One of Prine’s oldest friends and colleagues to perform was Bonnie Raitt, whom he had known since 1971. They both released their debut albums that year and Raitt has been performing “Angel From Montgomery” live ever since, calling it “a cornerstone of emotion for the audience and for me.”
'We started out together in the early '70s, Becky (Thatcher) and Tom Sawyer and Steve Goodman (singer-songwriter and longtime Prine collaborator) was Huck Finn,' Bonnie Raitt said before earning an ovation for 'Angel From Montgomery' with Carlile on harmonies. 'We tore it up all through the '70s. And we were just about to tear it up in our 70s.'
“For us all to come together in honor of him this week is so healing for us as well as for the Prine family,” Raitt said of the concerts. “It’s really the wake and the celebration we didn’t get to have yet.”
The amount of talent and heart gathered Monday at the Mother Church was, honestly, staggering. Upstarts included the charismatic Nashville staple Margo Price, red-hot Bluegrass Stater Tyler Childers, and pop-country maven Kacey Musgraves — an avowed super-fan who, early in her career, titled a song “Burn One With John Prine” and eventually got to perform said tune with its namesake — plus, from the West Coast, Milk Carton Kids, a duo whose harmonies on their rendition of Prine’s 1980 track “Storm Windows” induced goosebumps.
Heavier in nature were performances by Lyle Lovett, Lucinda Williams, and others whose relationships with the revered songwriter were more peer-to-peer than teacher-and-understudy.
Yet as gifted as Prine proved himself to be at boiling down universal truths into pithy tunes over his long, fruitful career, it was the between-song anecdotes shared by Sunday and Monday’s performers — firsthand reflections of both his big heart, and subtle-yet-wicked sense of humor — that made his loss feel most pronounced and proved that Prine was a man not only gifted in writing about the human experience, but living it too.
The “You Got Gold” concerts wrap up Wednesday night with one last show at the Basement East in East Nashville.
From an affinity for The Gift of the Magi and early 20th century short stories by O. Henry and reflecting on the loss of friend John Prine, who died on April 7, 2020, and his first songs “Donald and Lydia” and “Angel of Montgomery,” to further references to Bob Dylans’ earlier acoustic story songs, Bonnie Raitt was able to capture the modesty of the narratives she needed to deliver on her 18th album Just Like That….
Initially touched by a human interest story she saw on 60 Minutes about a woman who met the recipient of her son’s heart and would hear it beating for the first time since his death, Raitt began writing the title track. Another newspaper story about volunteers who spent time with terminal inmates inspired “Down the Hall,” and helped Raitt find the stories she needed to tell.
“Those story songs, Prine and Jackson and Paul Brady from Ireland, and Bob Dylan was really what I wanted to do on those two songs,” Raitt told American Songwriter, “to come from that fingerpicking simplicity of just a person on the guitar.”
The remainder of Just Like That… are snapshots of other stories Raitt meant to cover over years, from “Something’s Got a Hold of My Heart,” by NRBQ’s Al Anderson; Toots and the Maytals’ “Love So Strong,” a song she originally planned to duet with her friend Toots Hibbert before his untimely death from COVID in 2020; the more uptempo blues of “Made Up Mind” by alt-country group The Bros. Landreth, who she had friended nearly a decade earlier at the Winnipeg Folk Festival; and her own rendition of “Here Comes Love” by the California Honeydrops, which she initially cut during her Dig In Deep session in 2015.
Raitt spoke to American Songwriter about getting into the heart of the songs on Just Like That…, capturing some of the essences of Prine’s innate storytelling, and why she’s never really fit into any music genre.
American Songwriter: More than 50 years in now, how has your songwriting, and the way you approach a song, shifted throughout the years?
Bonnie Raitt: In the beginning, I already had a backlog of songs for the first two albums [Bonnie Raitt, 1971; Give It Up, 1972] that I just loved. If you talk to most songwriters, and people that are interpreters like me, first of all, you’re so surprised that anybody’s going to give you an actual record deal. But if you’ve been performing for a while in public, you have a little set, maybe 20 songs that you draw from so that’s two albums right there. Then you cut every record, and you got to come up with another set, and it gets harder to say something new.
How many times can you say you “broke my heart, you lying, cheating scumbag?” I’ve done so many songs about the prismatic aspects of heartbreak—whether you are the one that caused it, or you are on the receiving end. I’ll take you back, even if it’s a stupid idea. Almost every permutation of love I’ve sung about, it becomes, in some ways, similar each time. It gets harder to come up with something new and original. That’s where my work comes in, and that is trying to be creative, and the song hunt of finding that jewel that nobody’s heard. It gets harder with time when you get up there in albums, but the process of weeding through old material and new material with the same amount of “oh my god, I’m not finding anything” and then all of a sudden you find a jewel, it must be like fishing. I’m not a fisherman, but you just go out there day after day and say “oh forget it,” and then you catch something.
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AS: So when you’ve dug up everything within and presented all the personal stories you can over time and start looking outward for the next story, the next song, where do you go?
BR: I think that’s why I did “Down the Hall” and “Just Like That,” because the last few records I’ve written as personal songs. Of the sad ballads that I’ve written, I really have covered and mined all of the heartbreak in my own personal life. I look at John Prine and think about how he crept into the heart of the woman that was singing “Angel From Montgomery” and how he did I when he was like 21 years old. I mean, it was unbelievable.
AS: Do most of your older songs still resonate with you even though they were written in different times and personal spaces?
BR: They do. I didn’t sing “Love Has No Pride” for a lot of years. It used to be the cornerstone of my set in the early ’70s because I cut it when I was 22. “I Can’t Make You Love Me” was my “Love Has No Pride” then, and I did “Angel From Montgomery” and those two together were cornerstones in my set. That’s the only one that I stopped singing. It’s not so much about feminism but [recites lyrics] love has no pride when I call out your name… I’m not putting up with that anymore. I’m not going to beg somebody to come back. It’s interesting, because a couple of decades later somebody asked about it, and they were so innocent. They said, “I really wish you would sing that song,” and I went, “Okay, I’m gonna do it for you,” and then it transformed me singing it because I had so much empathy for the person that was aching for that person to come back that they would do anything. I was singing it for that person. It’s not me anymore. I’m just singing it for that part of me, of having tremendous sympathy for the young woman I was, that would have given anything to have this guy back.
AS: It’s amazing how a song can transform over time like that. BR: Yes, I think so, and other people that write all their own songs … I have no idea how they can keep coming up with new topics—to write all your own material. Collaborating probably makes it a little bit easier. It’s hard enough to find good songs to cover, but if I had to write on my own, I would have retired.
AS: It takes a lot out of you. It’s really an emotional process.
BR: And what about the fact that you have to mix commerce? I have maybe 15 friends, and I’m just pulling that off the top of my head, who have made incredible records the last two or three albums, and no one’s paid any attention to them. I know writers that have written books that are some of my favorite books on my shelf, and nobody paid any attention to them. So I sympathize, and I have political activist journalist friends who have written pieces that would change the world if people could just see it. So that’s why the joy of having a little bit more success, so that when I call Bonnie Hayes and say, “I’m going to cut more of your songs”… in the old days, it would be like I’d sold 150,000 albums, and they wouldn’t even make any money on it, but now when Nick of Time hit, I could help somebody get a house.
AS: You’ve moved acrosscountry, Americana, pop, folk, rock but there’s never really been a category for you. How have you managed not to get stuck in one particular genre all these years?
BR: Thank you. That makes me happy to hear. At least the Americana format has broadened what we have. We have an umbrella now for bands like Little Feat… I mean, why do we have to call Delbert McClinton country? Is he blues? No. When you go to see a great musical—and I was blessed to grow up in musical theater with my dad and watched the great classics all the time—the arc within a show has uptempo and playful songs and then just heart-piercing heartbreak songs. It’s how you string them together that makes the show fun or makes an album interesting to me. So when people try to say, “are you country or this or that,” it’s just so irrelevant.
AS: I think we’ve finally managed to move on from this with all the cross-over in country and pop, rock and hip-hop, and beyond.
BR: I think so too. I’m glad to see everybody cross-pollinating, like Lil Nas [X]. The great cultural hope I have for bridging some of this animosity in our country of polarization is when rap artists and country artists get together. Who would have foreseen that? Now there are a lot of black artists in country music, so it’s really great.
I feel like it’s my job to celebrate some of these genres of music. I love that kind of soul, Hall & Oates-era of music where they’re paying homage to the soul records that they love, and “Made Up Mind” really reminds me of those. Usually, when I want to have an R&B kind of tinge single like that, it’s because it’s just a genre of music I love so much.
Honestly, I just pick these songs so I can play them live.
Read our recent interview with Raitt, which appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of American Songwriter, here.
Obsessed with The Shirelles when she was a little girl, Tina would sing the legendary group’s hit “Soldier Boy” out the window of her Bronx, New York apartment to unsuspecting passersby, then duck when they looked up to find the source of the out-of-tune vocals. Growing up with parents playing everything from T. Rex to The Temptations on vinyl, throughout her career, and life, it all continued to come back to music for Tina. Moving through later addictions to new wave and pop, punk — even seeing The Ramones before they parted ways — and more post-punk and harder rock /metal, music became an entire soundtrack of Tina’s life — and remains one to this day. Singing was never in the cards for Tina, but writing was, and she jumped into early record reviews for her high school newspaper before studying journalism at NYU and entering her one of first “real” writing jobs as a reporter for the Village Voice in the late 1990s. A journalist for more than two decades, Tina has covered hard news, along with entertainment, art, pop culture, food, wine and spirits, health, travel and more. Throughout it all, the stories always retuned to music. Her words have appeared in Billboard, Men’s Journal, Wine Spectator, and other local and national newspapers, magazines, and online publications. And she’s still a lifelong fan of The Shirelles.
NPR turns 50 this year, and we’re marking it by looking back on some other things that happened in 1971. It was that year that songwriter John Prine released his debut album. Prine died in 2020.
For its 50th anniversary, join us in an online listening party for John Prine‘s self-titled debut. NPR Music’s Ann Powers will be joined by John’s wife Fiona Prine, their son Jody Whelan, legendary singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt and producer Jim Rooney in a live conversation about this monumental album.
The event has taken place on the anniversary of the album’s release, Sept. 23, at 2 p.m. ET.
The story of John Prine’s debut album is like something out of a movie: a postal service worker makes his way up the Chicago folk scene, gets noticed by Kris Kristofferson after John had finished his set. John got up on stage, played another set just for Kris and a few other people, and Kris Kristofferson was blown away. And that led to a record deal and Prine’s magnificent recording debut.
“Good songwriters are on the rise, but John Prine is differently good,” went the original Rolling Stone review. These were not just story-songs, but deceptively simple excavations of character. The likes of Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt and the Everly Brothers covered “Sam Stone,” “Paradise” and “Angel from Montgomery,” but moreover revered Prine’s quiet sense of timing, humor and empathy.
“John Prine captured people in those moments of supposing when life gets really small and almost impossible, but then another thought occurs,” Ann Powers wrote in her 2020 remembrance. “A laugh, or a dignified response, or even a sense of blessing.”
POWERS: I think the thing about John Prine – and you can totally hear it throughout this record – is that he has so much humor, and he hooks you in with that and also with his storytelling skills. And then he just gently reaches in and pulls out your heart.
John Prine’s debut album basically made him a legend among singer-songwriters. And one of the people listening was Bonnie Raitt. And she soon recorded “Angel From Montgomery,” and it became a hit.
BONNIE RAITT: It’s a timeless masterpiece. For John to have captured that other generation’s despair, the hopelessness of – how the hell can a person go to work in the morning and come home and have nothing to say? – you know, it’s the reason I didn’t want to get married.
POWERS: And that’s the crazy thing about John Prine’s 1971 debut. It is just one classic after another, not just “Angel From Montgomery,” but “Sam Stone,” “Hello In There,” “Paradise.” And today, 50 years later, it’s – remains a beloved classic that continues to inspire and influence so many of us.
So please join us in the chat to ask questions, or just to shout out your love and thoughts. Let’s listen together!
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The last recorded song by John Prine. Written by Prine and his longtime collaborator Pat McLaughlin.
Oh Boy Records Store
The home of Oh Boy Records and our artists: John Prine, Dan Reeder, Kelsey Waldon, Tré Burt, Arlo McKinley, and Emily Scott Robinson. From music to merchandise, purchase directly from the label here!
John Prine
Explore releases from John Prine at Discogs. Shop for Vinyl, CDs and more from John Prine at the Discogs Marketplace.
Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.
Bonnie has contributed a new recording of "Prison Bound Blues" written by Leroy Carr to a project called Better Than Jail, an extraordinary new album benefiting Free Hearts and Equal Justice USA. Better Than Jail is available everywhere today and features covers of iconic prison songs from Steve Earle, Taj Mahal,Margo Price, The War and Treaty and many more. The album seeks to raise awareness and support for the urgent need to reduce the harm of the criminal justice system. https://found.ee/BetterThanJail. I'm so proud to have joined in with so many illustrious artists in creating this very special album in support of rural prison reform. Overlooked for far too long, this issue cuts across all cultural and political divides and deserves all our focused attention to finally bring about some swift and meaningful action. Better Than Jail is one of the most inspired and heartfelt albums I've been blessed to be a part of and I hope it sets a fire in hearts far and wide to join in our efforts." ~ Bonnie Raitt
Released on: 2024-10-04 Executive Producer: Brian Hunt Producer: Kenny Greenberg Producer: Wally Wilson Producer: Bonnie Raitt Recording Engineer: Jason Lehning at Sound Emporium Mastering Engineer: Alex McCollough at True East Mastering Production Assistant: Shannon Finnegan Mixer: Justin Niebank at Hounds Ear Music Publisher: Universal Music Corp. Composer, Lyricist: Leroy Carr ℗ Believe Entertainment Group and Wyatt Road Records
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The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Nothing in Rambling Ft. Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' & Mick Fleetwood
In celebration of the band’s 50th Anniversary, The Fabulous Thunderbirds have just released Struck Down, their first studio album in eight years on Stony Plain Records. The ten-track album includes a wonderful cover of Memphis Minnie’s “Nothing in Rambling,” featuring longtime friends, T-Birds founding member Kim Wilson, along with Bonnie, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal and Mick Fleetwood. — BRHQ
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Little Feat - Long Distance Call
“I’ve always loved Little Feat and this new incarnation of the band is bringing some serious heat, cred and new blood to their enduring legacy. Every Feat fan loves us some Sam. I’m so glad he’s now gotten a chance to step out front and center and put his spin on these wonderful blues songs. I loved singing "Long Distance Call" with him, always one of my favorites, and Scott slayed on slide. Know you’ll enjoy hanging out with us at Sam’s Place!" -- Bonnie Raitt
“Long Distance Call” was written by blues legend, Muddy Waters. It has Sam Clayton and Bonnie Raitt on vocals, Scott Sharrard on Dobro, Fred Tackett on acoustic guitar, Tony Leone on drums, and Michael “The Bull” LoBue on harmonica. The album also features Bill Payne on piano and Kenny Gradney on bass.
Little Feat have composed an album that’s their love letter to the blues entitled, ‘Sam’s Place.’ “Long Distance Call” plus many other blues classics are on this album. You can stream and order ‘Sam’s Place’ here: https://orcd.co/samsplace
Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2, the anticipated new John Prine tribute record from Oh Boy Records, is out today. Stream/purchase HERE.
Created as a celebration of Prine’s life and career, the album features new renditions of some of Prine’s most beloved songs performed by Brandi Carlile (“I Remember Everything”), Tyler Childers (“Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink After You”), Iris DeMent (“One Red Rose”), Emmylou Harris (“Hello In There”), Jason Isbell (“Souvenirs”), Valerie June (“Summer’s End”), Margo Price (“Sweet Revenge”), Bonnie Raitt (“Angel From Montgomery”), Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (“Pretty Good”), Amanda Shires (“Saddle in the Rain”), Sturgill Simpson(“Paradise”) and John Paul White (“Sam Stone”). Proceeds from the album will benefit twelve different non-profit organizations, one selected by each of the featured artists.
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Bonnie Raitt - Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues
60 years anniversary celebration of Arhoolie
December 10, 2020
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Arhoolie Foundation celebrates it's 60th anniversary (1960-2020) with an online broadcast.
Bonnie Raitt - Shadow of Doubt
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
October 3, 2020
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass celebrates it's 20th anniversary with an online broadcast titled “Let The Music Play On”.
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Bonnie Raitt & Boz Scaggs - You Don't Know Like I Know
Farm Aid 2020 On the Road
Sam & Dave classic written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter.
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Sheryl Crow & Bonnie Raitt - Everything Is Broken
[Eric Clapton’s Crossroads 2019]
Eric Clapton, one of the world’s pre-eminent blues/rock guitarists, once again summoned an all-star team of six-string heroes for his fifth Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2019. Held at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, the two-day concert event raised funds for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, the chemical dependency treatment and education facility that Clapton founded in 1998.
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'A Tribute To Mose Allison'
Celebrates The Music Of An Exciting Jazz Master
Raitt contributed to a new album, If You're Going To The City: A Tribute To Mose Allison, which celebrates the late singer and pianist, who famously blended the rough-edged blues of the Mississippi Delta with the 1950s jazz of New York City.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Bonnie Raitt about her friendship with the Mose Allison. They're also joined by Amy Allison — his daughter, who executive produced the album — about selecting an unexpected list of artists to contribute songs to the album.
Recorded on tour June 3, 2017 - Centennial Hall, London - Ontario Canada
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