John Prine, revered US folk songwriter, dies of coronavirus complications

John Prine Photograph: IC

John Prine, a US folks legend broadly thought of one in every of his era’s most influential songwriters, died following problems of coronavirus on Tuesday, his publicist mentioned on behalf of his household. He was 73 years outdated.

On Friday, Prine’s spouse Fiona had posted on social media the beloved nation and folks star was on his eighth day within the ICU on a ventilator, and had pneumonia in each lungs.

As soon as dubbed the “Mark Twain of American songwriting,” Prine carved a picture over his 5 many years within the music enterprise as an informal wordsmith who solid melancholy tales with a dose of surrealist wit.

Bob Dylan has named Prine amongst his favourite songwriters, citing the literary yarn “Lake Marie” as a favourite from his fellow folks bard’s huge catalogue.

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“Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism,” Dylan mentioned in 2009.

“Midwestern mind-trips to the nth diploma. And he writes lovely songs.”

Born on October 10, 1946 in Maywood, Illinois, Prine took up singing and strumming his guitar as a passion earlier than rising on the Chicago folks revivalist scene within the late 1960s, when he was found by nation star Kris Kristofferson.

His 1971 self-titled debut album was a vital hit, a primary assortment of his distinctive social commentary and protest songs that might make the troubadour a staple of Americana for many years to return.

His anti-Vietnam Battle hit “Your Flag Decal Will not Get You Into Heaven Anymore” discovered a second coming within the early 2000s because the US launched into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, incomes Prine each standing ovations and indignant hate mail.

“When somebody turns the nation backwards,” he advised Florida’s St. Petersburg Instances in 2005, “they need to at the very least count on to be referred to as out on it.”

‘Homespun humorousness’

The bluegrass-loving musician with a penchant for allegory loved riffing on nation music tropes with stereotypical spoofs, including whimsical touches to heavier lyricism.

Prine spun tales of previous loves in addition to solitude, estrangement and remorse, particularly in his later work streaked with outstanding threads of mortality.

“His is simply terribly eloquent music – and he lives on that aircraft with Neil [Young] and [John] Lennon,” mentioned Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters of Prine in 2008.

In 1981, uninterested in the recording institution that he thought of exploitative of artists, Prine based his personal document label Oh Boy Data in Nashville.

The Grammy winner with 19 studio albums to his title this 12 months obtained a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy.

In 2019 Prine was inducted into the Songwriter’s Corridor of Fame, and in 2016 joined elite firm together with Chuck Berry and Leonard Cohen in incomes a prestigious songwriting award from the PEN literary group.

“The mix of being that tender and that clever and that astute combined along with his homespun humorousness – it was in all probability the closest factor for these of us that did not get the blessing of seeing Mark Twain in individual,” mentioned fellow musician Bonnie Raitt, who famously coated one in every of Prine’s most cherished songs “Angel From Montgomery” in 1974.

‘Gonna get a cocktail’

Prine continued to tour nicely into his golden years, releasing his final studio album in 2018.

His storied profession included two battles with most cancers. In 1998 he obtained a squamous cell most cancers analysis and had surgical procedure to take away diseased tissue in his neck, severing a number of nerves.

After a 12 months of speech remedy he was in a position to carry out once more, albeit with a brand new gravelly timbre.

In 2013 he fought lung most cancers and had a part of his lung eliminated, a course of he rehabilitated from by operating up and down his stairs and singing two songs along with his guitar whereas nonetheless breathless.

The artist’s spouse Fiona had mentioned in March that she had examined optimistic for COVID-19, and his household on March 29 mentioned Prine was intubated and in “vital” situation as a result of virus that is left greater than 80,000 folks useless worldwide.

His loss of life from coronavirus problems follows that of nation hitmaker Joe Diffie, who additionally succumbed to the fast-spreading virus.

Ever a jokester within the face of tribulation, the heaven Prine envisioned on his final album would permit him to renew his youthful habits: “I am gonna get a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale / I am gonna smoke a cigarette that is 9 miles lengthy.”

“I am gonna kiss that fairly woman on the tilt-a-whirl,” Prine sang.

“‘Trigger this outdated man is goin’ to city.”

Newspaper headline: ‘Mark Twain’ of music