We lost John Prine five years ago and my Facebook posts of the time reminded me how much I struggled to hear that. I couldn’t listen to any John Prine songs for an inordinately long time (as memory serves well over a year) before I could listen, or especially watch, any of his videos!
One of the first famous folk I heard of dying from the Covid-19 pandemic although he had been poorly before that having survived two bouts of throat cancer and its side effects and it certainly claimed him and we are all, of cours,e the poorer for his leaving us. My thoughts always and still go out to his dear wife Fiona Wheelan Prine and their children and well as all those friends and family.
Sad times indeed . . .
These are my Facebook posts five years ago now
On this day
5 years ago
5 years ago
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Heart breaking note from John’s widow Fiona, appreciating all the expressions of love for her fellah! 
On this day
5 years ago
Heart broken to hear of John Prine’s death from Covid-19 overnight. A personal hero and one of America’s greatest singer songwriters (a Bob Dylan favourite) discovered and lauded by Kris Kristofferson, admired by all in country music and wider and loved by countless fans worldwide, he had been ill for some time but soldiered on touring at one the most extraordinary times in his career travelling the world to play for us having beaten two bouts of throat cancer and only when struck by this corona virus did he succumb finally at 73. He leaves behind a loving family and wife and label manager Fiona who keep everyone informed as to his struggle.
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JOHN PRINE R.I.P. 1946 - 2020
John Prine, who for five decades wrote rich, plain-spoken songs that chronicled the struggles and stories of everyday working people and changed the face of modern American roots music, died Tuesday April 7 at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He was 73. The cause was complications related to COVID-19, his family confirmed to Rolling Stone.
Prine, who left behind an extraordinary body of folk-country classics, was hospitalized last month after the sudden onset of COVID-19 symptoms, and was placed in intensive care for 13 days. Prine’s wife and manager, Fiona, announced on March 17th that she had tested positive for the virus after they had returned from a European tour.
As a songwriter, Prine was admired by Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, and others, known for his ability to mine seemingly ordinary experiences - he wrote many of his classics as a mailman in Maywood, Illinois - for revelatory songs that covered the full spectrum of the human experience. There’s “Hello in There,” about the devastating loneliness of an elderly couple; “Sam Stone,” a portrait of a drug-addicted Vietnam soldier suffering from PTSD; and “Paradise,” an ode to his parents’ strip-mined hometown of Paradise, Kentucky, which became an environmental anthem. Prine tackled these subjects with empathy and humor, with an eye for “the in-between spaces,” the moments people don’t talk about, he told Rolling Stone in 2017. “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism,” Dylan said in 2009. “Midwestern mind-trips to the nth degree.” - Rolling Stone
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