John Prine: The Last Days and Beautiful Life of an American Original
John Prine’s 50-year career had taken him from the folk clubs of Chicago to sold-out venues in London, Australia, and beyond. But as he planned the schedule for the final leg of his Tree of Forgiveness tour, there was still one place he needed to play: Paris.
The city had never seemed to care for Prine. His down-to-earth folk songs had spread to Ireland, England, and even Scandinavia. But a promoter told his touring manager Mitchell Drosin that there was no point in booking his first-ever show in France; Prine would lose money if he brought his band. “John said, ‘You don’t understand. I want to play Paris, and I want to stay at the George V,’ which is one of the most expensive hotels in the world,” says Drosin. “It’s a Four Seasons, it’s insane. I said, ‘You know, your hotel is more than you’re going to get paid. It’s just going to be a club show. John said, ‘That’s great.’”
Drosin booked a show at Paris’ 500-capacity Café de La Danse, much smaller than the other venues on the tour. Prine loved Paris in ways that even Fiona, his wife and manager, struggled to explain. “He always loved that [Parisians] treated him with disdain, you know?” she says. “He just loved the people and the food and the idea he couldn’t understand a word they were saying. He didn’t have much of an ego.”
At the show, on February 13th, Prine was in serious pain from what he later learned was a collapsed hip. He was forced to sit in a chair onstage, something he never did. But he delivered, blasting through one of the most distinct catalogs in American popular music. There was 1971’s “Six O’Clock News,” the stunning story of a man who learns his family history was a lie and kills himself; “Angel From Montgomery,” his classic about the sadness of a suburban 1950s housewife; and 2018’s “Summer’s End,” a ballad he had dedicated to people suffering from America’s opioid crisis.
Prine invited Fiona and some visiting family members onstage to sing along to “Paradise,” a 1971 song about the devastation of the Kentucky coal-mining town where his parents met; in recent years, it had become an environmental anthem. Prine joked about his immobility, saying, “OK, now we’re coming to the encore,” because he couldn’t easily leave the stage. Prine’s sound engineer Andy Primus says Prine was “giddy,” telling more stories than usual: “People were sitting on the stairs and hanging over the railings, it felt like he was playing in your living room. Prine was feeding off the vibe and just having a blast.”
“He might as well have danced off the stage,” says Fiona. “He was so proud that he did that show, and it was sold out and they loved him. It felt like a victory lap.”
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I went to school in S.E. OH and studied the coal fields and what they did and John touched me.
"And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the green river where paradise lay?"
"Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away"
skip
When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am
