John Prine is back for one more local appearance in June, at Bass Hall
The mayor’s office never properly declared June to be John Prine Month in Austin, but it’s kind of felt like that, unofficially. The living-legend songwriter was here for two events earlier this month, talking with KUTX-FM’s Elizabeth McQueen at Waterloo Records on June 4 and then taping an episode of “Austin City Limits” the next night.
Austinites got in on the act the following week, when more than two dozen local musicians gathered at Threadgill’s South to perform Prine’s songs in a three-hour show benefiting the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. Organized and hosted by singer-songwriter Graham Weber, the event featured performances by Monte Warden, Carrie Rodriguez, Carson McHone, Western Youth and others.
Now Prine returns to close out June with a Saturday performance at Bass Concert Hall. The occasion for all this activity is “The Tree of Forgiveness,” which came out in April and became Prine’s highest-charting album ever, reaching No. 5 on the Billboard 200.
The June 5 “Austin City Limits” taping offered a glimpse of what the audience will hear at Bass. He played nearly all of the new album for “ACL,” and he’s been doing most of it on his recent tour stops, too. But the Bass show should run a little bit longer than the 16 songs he played at the taping, which means a little more room for Prine’s classic material.