Eddie Huffman's John
Prine: In Spite of Himeself (University
of Texas Press, March 2015, $24.96/13.99, 224 pages) from the
American Music Series effectively explores the music and life of
Americana icon John Prine in an admiring, but not uncritical
unauthorized biography. Not relying on a subjects cooperation has
both advantages and disadvantages for an author. The greatest
advantage lies in not having to write uncritically about a person
who's necessary to the completion of the work. A disadvantage may be
the lack of insight that can be garnered through direct access and
close questioning. Fortunately, Prine has, over the years, made
himself available through a series of written and recorded interviews
as well as in discussion of his own songs on his recordings. Huffman
seems to be a serious scholar, carefully mining the wealth of Prine
material in print, and in recorded sources, both on video and audio.
The result is an admirable piece of work providing insight into the
writer, the performer, and the man which leaves only a few unanswered
questions for me.
John
Prine has spent a long career defying easy classification, to the
extent that his body of work has come to help define the genre now
known as Americana. His witty word-play and insightful portrait of
ordinary people living out their lives has been described as folk,
country, rock, and pop though not fully or comfortably fitting into
any single category. Prine has influenced and been influenced by
bluegrass music. This refusal to be defined down to a single genre
may have helped keep his own performances from reaching the top of
the charts, but has not kept him from establishing an enduring record
of accomplishment as both a singer/songwriter and a unique performer.
Born in Maywood, Illinois in 1946 into a family which, like many, had
migrated from the coal country of Western Kentucky (Paradise,
Muhlenberg County) to the industrial heartland, he had a more or less
conventional childhood. His parents gave him an inexpensive guitar on
which he began noodling and exploring. He served a tour in the U.S.
Army in Germany and, on returning, became a mailman in Chicago. Prine
started writing songs and singing for himself in his characteristic
gravely voice, eventually taking lessons at the Old
Town Music School in Chicago and beginning to sing in small
venues, where he was heard by Kris Kristofferson, Steve Goodman, and
Paul Anka, who helped give his career a boost. His first album
contained a number of songs which have become standards across
genres, including the anti-war song Sam Stone, the
often covered Angel from Montgomery, sly
Donald & Lydia,
and bluegrass standard Paradise.
Over his long career he has distinguished himself for the wit of his
language, his insight into working people, his musical versatility,
and his enduring contributions as a song writer. He has won a Grammy
Award and is a member of the American Singer/Songwriter Hall of Fame.
While his work has never charted well, he has a large and devoted
world-wide fan base. He is the subject of a fan web site called The
John Prine Shrine that should be consulted for further
information.
Prine's
personal life seems to me to have been unremarkable in most ways.
He's been married three times, twice to musicians, has a couple of
kids who came along relatively late in life, and is a cancer
survivor. He long had a pretty serious drinking problem, which
affected his performances to the extent that they were noted in
critical appraisals of his work. Prine was always a heavy smoker,
too. The combination of alcohol and tobacco eventually led to his
developing a throat cancer in the late 1990's which was operated on,
apparently successfully, but proved to be slightly disfiguring and
had some effect on his voice, although not enough to keep him from
performing. Huffman covers the personal as well as the musical side
of Prine's life, but doesn't answer (or seem to ask) a series of
important questions that should animate an exploration of an artist's
life and work: Where does it all come from? There's not much in
Prine's background, education, or experience to suggest the sources
of the enduring creative wellspring of his production. It would be
enlightening to know what Prine read, who he listened to, how his
life experience animated his writing. Beyond commenting that, as he
aged, he (as is typical of artists and other creative people) became
less productive and more cooperative, learning to co-write with many
other Nashville lights, Huffman runs up against a blank wall in not
finding or identifying Prine's sources. It can't all come from a
relatively uneventful tour of duty in Germany and several years of
pounding the pavement as a mailman. While more than adequately
compiling acounts of Prine's work, effect, and influence based on
critical writings about him, reviews of his work, and recordings of
his conversations with others, Huffman doesn't reach deeply enough
into the creative bag that distinguishes Prine's lifetime output.
Eddie
Huffman
Eddie
Huffman, a ninth- or tenth-generation North Carolinian, has been
writing about music legends, muscle cars, obscenity trials,
moonshiners, Civil War reenactors, and murderous ventriloquist
dummies since before Lady Gaga was born. John
Prine: In Spite of Himself is the first book he has written
on his own. He has contributed to Rolling Stone, the New York Times,
Utne Reader, All Music Guide, Goldmine, the Virgin Islands Source,
and many other publications.
He lives in Burlington, North Caroline (from the About section of
Huffman's web site.)
John
Prine: In Spite of Himeself (University
of Texas Press, March 2015, $24.96/13.99, 224 pages) by Eddie Huffman
is an interesting and workmanlike closeup of a singer/songwriter
whose influence on American music is distinguished by the richness of
his language, his often ironic and humorous view of ordinary people
living out unremarkable lives, and his long, varied career. While
never a chart-topper, Prine's work has influenced and been publicly
appreciated by musical greats from Johnny Cash to Bob Dylan, and
recorded by top country, folk, and pop singers in wonderful covers
for forty years. Huffman captures the variety and richness of his
work, especially through careful analysis of the critical appraisals
available in print and online. The book is well sourced, providing a
wealth of further reading and a useful discography for those wishing
to push further into the life and work of this important performer.
As in many such books, there are extensive, even exhaustive, accounts
of where recordings were made, who he performed and produced with,
where he performed, and other minutia which readers of such
biographies love. I bought the book and read it on my Kindle app.
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