At 70, John Prine is the hippest songwriter in Nashville
The first time a new country songwriter named Kacey Musgraves saw one of her songwriting heroes, John Prine, she had an unusual proposition when she approached.
“I said, ‘Hey, my name is Kacey and I am a really big fan. I don’t want to offend you or anything, but is there any way you might want to burn one with me?’” Musgraves recalled saying after one of his shows in Nashville, Tennessee.
Musgraves, who would later go on to win two Grammy Awards for her 2013 major label debut album, was hoping to fulfill a fantasy of smoking a joint with Prine. It was also the premise of an unreleased song she had written that somehow ended up on Prine’s desk.
Prine, who has survived a couple of bouts of cancer, politely declined.
“He says, ‘Well, I don’t do that anymore, but if I did, I would with you,’” Musgraves, who is now 28, recalled.
This 70-year-old former mailman from Chicago is the hippest writer in Nashville and still in demand. Prine has become an affable songwriting guru for many of Nashville’s talented young artists, including country rebel Sturgill Simpson, Americana darlings Jason Isbell and his wife, Amanda Shires, and rocker Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.
All those artists have lined up to open for Prine, when they are easily selling out their own venues as headliners.
“I have met some really great people in the last five years that it’s easy to see that music in general is in good hands,” Prine said in an interview from his office, which is decorated year round with Christmas lights and a white Christmas tree.
Prine published his first book in April, a songbook called “Beyond Words,” which features guitar chords, family photos, handwritten or typed lyrics with his editing marks and witty musings alongside some of his most well-known songs, from “Sam Stone,” ‘’Angel from Montgomery,” ‘’Paradise,” and “Hello in There.” Prine’s reinvigorated career came after neck cancer in the late ‘90s left him with a much lower and grittier voice. After his recovery, he just moved his songs to lower key.
“Some of my oldest songs that I used to perform every night became brand spanking new just because I changed the key,” Prine said.
He started his own record label Oh Boy in Nashville in the early ‘80s, which sold his CDs by direct mail to fans. He enjoys his independence from major labels, even if it has meant fewer sales. He says his only advice to young songwriters is don’t give up their publishing rights in a record deal.
“I am not a big one for advice,” Prine said. “I will tell them stories about things I have failed at or places I have stumbled and hope they take it as a parable. And maybe apply it to themselves and maybe not.”
Auerbach and Prine wrote several songs together, including the title track for Auerbach’s new solo album, “Waiting On a Song.”
“It was like having a conversation really,” the 38-year-old singer said of writing with Prine. “And I think for me, that’s what John does so well with his music. It’s not over your head. He uses simple language to convey big meaning.”
The Grammy-winner has taken on heavy topics including coal mining in Appalachia, the treatment of Vietnam veterans and the loneliness of growing old, and earned praises from Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Kris Kristofferson, who helped Prine get his first record deal. But he also likes to write with humor, as evidenced by another popular duet with Iris Dement “In Spite of Ourselves,” that contains some of his best one-liners about love and marriage.
“I think John is very youthful at heart,” Musgraves said. “He’s a big