This news makes me feel so sad. The real earnest deal. There isn’t an ounce of inauthenticity in John Prine.
He was just a working guy indulging his passion for music at folk clubs when people recognized his huge talent.
“In the late 1960s, while Prine was delivering mail in Maywood, Illinois, he began to sing at open mic evenings at the Fifth Peg on Armitage Avenue. Prine was initially a spectator, reluctant to perform, but eventually did so in response to a “You think you can do better?” comment made to him by another performer. Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert heard him there and wrote the first review Prine ever received, calling him a great songwriter.” Link