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 Prine was hospitalized in Nashville on March 26 suffering from
symptoms of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the
novel coronavirus, according to his wife, Fiona Whelan Prine,
who was also his manager.
"We join the world in mourning the passing of revered country
and folk singer/songwriter John Prine," the Recording Academy
said in a written statement.
"Widely lauded as one of the most influential songwriters of his
generation, John’s impact will continue to inspire musicians for
years to come. We send our deepest condolences to his loved
ones."
A publicist for Prine confirmed his death due to complications
from COVID-19 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in his
adopted hometown of Nashville.
Born in Chicago on October 10, 1946, to William Prine and Verna
Hamm, both originally of Kentucky, Prine was taught by his older
brother David to play guitar at the age of 14 and attended music
classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music.
After graduating from high school in suburban Maywood, Illinois,
Prine worked as a mail carrier for five years, performing in
Chicago clubs in the evenings at occasional "open mic" nights.
He would say later that some of his best-known early songs were
written while he walked the streets of Chicago delivering mail.
"I likened the mail route to being in a library without any
books. You just had time to be quiet and think, and that's where
I would come up with a lot of songs. If the song was any good I
could remember it later and write it down," Prine told the
Chicago Tribune in a 2010 interview.
He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1966, stationed in Germany
during the Vietnam War, before returning home to dedicate
himself to music and establishing himself as a leading member of
Chicago's folk revival scene.
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson fatefully saw Prine
performing at the Earl of Old Town club, leading to Prine's
signing with Atlantic Records and self-titled debut album,
released in 1971.
That album, widely praised by critics, contained several songs
that would become staples of Prine's catalog.
They included "Angel from Montgomery," about a woman wishing for
deliverance from her unfulfilling life, "Paradise," about a
Kentucky town devastated by strip mining, and "Sam Stone,"
chronicling the downward spiral of a drug-addicted Vietnam War
veteran and containing the oft-quoted refrain: "There's a hole
in daddy's arm where all the money goes, Jesus Christ died for
nothin I suppose."
The songs have since each been covered dozens of times by other
artists.
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DYLAN COMPARISONS
His early songwriting style earned comparisons with no less than
folk great Bob Dylan, who later called Prine one of his favorites.
"Prine's stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern
mindtrips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs," Dylan
told the Huffington Post in 2009.
Prine released a string of albums in the 1970s, winning larger
audiences and critical acclaim as his music stretched from folk to
country to Americana, often infused with a sense of humor.
In the 1980s, fed up with the recording industry, he started his own
label, Oh Boy Records, releasing albums under that imprint for the
next several decades.
He won his first Grammy Award in 1991, Best Contemporary Folk Album,
for "The Missing Years." He would win a second Grammy in the same
category in 2005 for "Fair and Square." In December 2019, the
Recording Academy honored him with a lifetime achievement award.
Prine survived squamous cell cancer in 1998, undergoing surgery to
his neck and tongue that left his voice with an even deeper,
gravelly tone. In 2013, he was diagnosed with cancer in his left
lung and had it removed.
Prine was able to find humor in his struggle with cancer, joking
that it actually improved his voice. The same humor suffused much of
his work, alongside its poignant commentary about the struggles and
foibles of ordinary people.
"If I can make myself laugh about something I should be crying
about, that's pretty good," he once said.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney
and Edwina Gibbs)
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