Member 90210 wrote:
John Prine has a story he likes to tell about the time he thought he had finished recording a new album, only to find that the record producer wanted him to write one more song for the disc.Yes, we do deliver, and we ain't talking pizza here. If you're still not a member, join today.
“I thought, ‘I’ll show him – I’ll write the worst thing he’s ever heard,’” the 62-year-old singer-songwriter remembered during his concert on Saturday night at the Warfield.
The fact that the resulting effort was “Fish and Whistle,” an unbearably catchy country-flavored tune that has since become a true fan favorite, only confirms my longstanding suspicion: Prine simply can’t write a bad song.
Oh, but he sure can pen some great ones, and that’s all that fans heard during the folk-rock star’s 24-song, two-hour set.
Prine’s tunes come in three distinct flavors: funny, sad and sad but funny. It’s hard to think of another singer-songwriter on the planet that handles both heartbreak and humor as convincingly as this former mailman from Maywood, Illinois.
Whenever there is talk about the greatest singer/songwriters in rock history, the usual suspects are always named: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Smokey Robinson, etc. Any such discussion, however, is incomplete without the mention of John Prine.
During his performance, Prine, now almost 62, gave the capacity crowd 23 excellent reasons for why he should be ranked among popular music's all-time great wordsmiths. Kicking off the show with the sing-along favorite "Spanish Pipedream," Prine proceeded to mix humor and sorrow, joy and frustration, as naturally in his songs as they blend in real life. That ability is the No. 1 thing that separates Prine from most other folk-rockers. There's not another guy (or gal) on the planet, with or without a guitar in hand, that can take a listener from being teary-eyed one moment to giggling the next as quickly, and as convincingly, as John Prine.
Play List
1. Spanish Pipedream
2. Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)
3. Souvenirs
4. Far From Me
5. Please Don't Bury Me
6. Fish and Whistle (great story about how he wrote that song)
7. Glory of True Love
8. Crazy as a Loon
9. Angel from Montgomery
10. Long Monday
11. Donald and Lydia
12. Bottomless Lake
13. Mexican Home
14. Dear Abby
15. Sam Stone
16. Bear Creek
17. That's Alright By Me
18. She Is My Everything
19. Ain't Hurtin' Nobody
20. Hello in There
21. Lake Marie
22. People Putting People Down
encore
23. Paradise.
Hopefully I got all the titles right because Bottomless Lake and That's Alright by Me were new to me. We spent about 10 minutes talking backstage and he told a few great stories of days gone by. He jokingly told me “I don’t know why, in my early songs, I always killed off the main character................There goes the sequel.”
Thanks to BackstagePassDirect for comin' thru for me.
