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John Prine Dies Of Coronavirus: Lauded Singer-Songwriter Was 73

Erik Pedersen
·4 min read

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John Prine, a revered, Grammy-winning folk-Americana singer-songwriter whose career spanned nearly a half-century, died today of complications from coronavirus. He was 73.

Prine — A member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who last year was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time — had been hospitalized since March 26 with COVID-19 symptoms and been listed in critical condition for more than a week. Earlier his wife, Fiona, had announced that she also had coronavirus symptoms.

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A former mail carrier, Prine was discovered by Kris Kristofferson, who produced the singer’s folk-tinged self-titled debut album for Atlantic Records in 1971. The acclaimed record wasn’t a commercial hit but featured two songs that would become his signatures: “Sam Stone,” about an addicted Vietnam vet, which Johnny Cash famously covered, and “Hello in There,” an iconoclastic ode to lonely empty-nesters that clashed with the era’s Generation Gap ethos.

Prine that year earned the first of his 11 Grammy Award nominations, for Best New Artist, which eventually went to the trio America.

John Prine ranks No. 452 on Rolling Stone‘s 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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The Illinois native followed that disc up with three others for Atlantic during the next three years, each chart a little higher than the last but peaking with 1975’s Common Sense, which reached No. 66 on the Billboard 200. A hits compilation — Prime Prine: The Best of John Prine — followed. It barely dented the chart but eventually was certified gold.

Prine them moved to David Geffen’s artist-friendly Asylum Records, for which he recorded Bruised Orange (1978), Pink Cadillac (1979) and Storm Windows (1980).

After moving to Nashville in the early 1980s, Prine founded Oh Boy Records with his longtime manager Al Bunetta and another associate. He recorded nearly a dozen albums for the label, starting with 1984’s Aimless Love.

Prine continued to write, record and tour during the ensuing decades, and his songs were covered by such heavyweights as Bonnie Raitt, Bette Midler, George Strait and country supergroup the Highwaymen, which featured Cash, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. He never had a charting single or big-hit album, but he would win a pair of Grammys for Best Contemporary Folk Album: for The Missing Years in 1991 — which featured guest/fans Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty — and for Fair & Square in 2005. He received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2015. and the 2020 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Missing Years was the second of two Prine albums produced by Petty’s longtime bass player Howie Epstein.

Fair & Square began something of a career resurgence for Prine, charting at No. 55. His two most recent albums, 2016’s duets disc For Better, or Worse and 2018’s The Tree of Forgiveness, reached No. 30 and No. 5 on the Billboard 200, respectively. Both also hit No. 2 on the Country Albums chart and the top 10 on the Indie Albums tally.

Prine was born on October 10, 1946, in Maywood, IL, and joined the Postal Service after a stint in the Army. He made his performing debut on an open-mic night and so impressed the place’s owner that he hired the singer on the spot. Kristofferson saw him play in Chicago and helped establish the singer’s career, which earned critical — and peer — hosannas for decades.

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