Yes, John Prine qualifies for turning up here on the “blog of less renown.” Although successful, he remained something of a cult figure, admired by those who like “roots” music, or tunes with a slightly quirky twist on country music. One of his better known songs remains “Sam Stone,” about a man coming back from Vietnam with an addiction to drugs. Prine appreciated that Johnny Cash covered this song and helped get him noticed, and tactfully shrugged off the way Cash changed the cynical and despairing “Jesus Christ died for nothing” to “Daddy must have hurt a lot.”
What's above, is my own favorite, a wonderfully lame and droll tribute to how two people can stay together despite their very human faults. The bonus is that John's partner in grime is played by the great Iris Dement, who first turns up at 2:18 with anecdotal remarks that would send most any other woman hitchin' down the highway as far away from that guy as possible. Ah, Dement, you sing them pungent lines so well, lines you wouldn’t expect to hear in a lyric by anyone other than Prine.
In his latter years, recovering from neck cancer and continuing to tour and to create music on his own “Oh Boy” record label, Prince had plenty of famous people supporting him and playing with him. Duly noted, as well, is that along with C&W singer Joe Diffie, jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis and jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, John Prine’s life was shortened by the COVID-19 virus.
One of the lesser known victims is Hal Willner, who might be known for his various “tribute” albums and concerts as well as his many decades of contributing to “Saturday Night Live.” From Seth Meyers to Al Franken to Van Dyke Parks to Joan Jett, the tributes have poured in. One of his oddest projects was his own solo album, which had elements of Parks, Zappa, and other weirdos, as he did everything from slow down his voice and gimmick “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” to fuck up his voice and add jazz to the W.C. Fields/British Music Hall recitation “Fatal Glass of Beer,” which you see below:
No harm done. It was a throwaway album, the kind of thing a lot of Illfolks blog favorites have done for their own indie labels or for CD Baby...things that end up getting 50 or 250 hits on YouTube and are only amusing to a very small circle of oddballs.
It's just something to do while the world continues to deteriorate.
Among those currently being treated for Covid-19: Jackson Browne, Christopher Cross, Pink, Rita Wilson and Marianne Faithfull.
This disease, along with various other forms of flu (and the rise in a variety of insane illnesses and fatal maladies unknown only a few decades ago) is symptomatic of this crowded, unsanitary, reckless, over-populated, crude world.
The irresponsible idiots who are destroying it are aided and abetted by politicians who not only refused to nip Covid-19 in the bud, but de-funded those who monitor such diseases. World leaders have a literally sickening record of neglect and stupidity in not emphatically enforcing sanitation and birth control, and allocating more money to health care. Epidemics and pandemics are not going to end as long as there's filth, backward notions on the safe handling of food, and weird ideas of what is FOOD and what ISN'T.
At the very least, there should be a permanent end to handshaking and overcrowding, and a greater awareness of how dangerous it is to live life as a clueless selfish moron.
My sentiments exactly. Very well put, thank you for saying it.
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