John Prine

John Prine was an American singer-songwriter whose plainspoken, often wryly humorous lyrics made him one of the most respected voices in country and folk music. He grew up outside Chicago, in Maywood, Illinois, and worked for years as a mailman, composing songs in his head along his route before he ever performed them publicly. His early shows in Chicago folk clubs caught the attention of critic Roger Ebert and fellow songwriter Kris Kristofferson, whose support helped him land a recording deal with Atlantic Records in the early 1970s.

Prine's songwriting balanced tenderness and dark comedy, moving easily between songs about loneliness, war, addiction, and aging and songs full of absurdist wit. Tracks like «Angel from Montgomery», «Sam Stone», and «Paradise» became staples covered by generations of other artists, cementing his reputation as a songwriter's songwriter even when mainstream chart success eluded him. In 1984 he co-founded the independent label Oh Boy Records, which gave him creative control over his output for the rest of his career.

Despite serious health struggles, including cancer diagnoses that permanently altered his voice into a lower, rougher register, Prine kept writing and performing into his seventies, with later albums such as songs featured on his final records earning wide critical acclaim. He died in April 2020 in Nashville, one of the era's most mourned losses to the coronavirus pandemic, leaving behind a body of work widely regarded as among the most influential in American songwriting.