(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The Chicago singer-songwriter who best embodied in the 1970s the figure of the rough and brazen rebel was John Prine. Frankly polemical in the tradition of Phil Ochs, and sincerely honky-tonk in the tradition of Hank Williams, on his debut album, John Prine (Atlantic, 1971), he sketched vignettes of working-class life with a tone that was by turns tender (Sam Stone, about Vietnam veterans, and Six O'Clock News, an affectionate portrait of the working class), optimistic (Illegal Smile, 1971), pathetic (Hello In There, 1971, about the abandonment of the elderly), nostalgic (Souvenirs), romantic and passionate (Angel From Montgomery, Donald And Lydia). An impeccable dramatic talent served as the link between barely outlined melodies and ancestral rhythms.
Compared with that shock-album, the follow-up Diamonds in the Rough (Atlantic, 1972) is a collection of banalities, although it includes one of his most aggressive numbers, Yes I Guess They Ought To Name A Drink After You.
The boozy Dear Abby, the autobiographical Grandpa Was A Carpenter, the sarcastic Christmas In Prison, and the epic Sweet Revenge are the gems of Sweet Revenge (1973), one of his best (and most country) albums, and for once a commercial success.
With the (electric and raucous) album Common Sense (1975), Prine seemed instead to lose his bearings (even a Caribbean-flavored Saddle In The Rain), or at least to leave behind the folksingers world in an awkward rather than innovative way.
Prine quickly recovered, however, with the even more polemical and whimsical Bruised Orange (Asylum, 1978), buoyed by Fish And Whistle and Sabu Visits The Twin Cities Alone, which essentially marked a return to his original (acoustic) style and represents the third peak of his career.
Continuing the stylistic seesaw, Pink Cadillac (1979) instead embraced the sound of rockabilly and a generally tougher attitude (Killing The Blues), bordering on paranoia.
Naturally, the following record, Storm Windows (1980), was the opposite: a collection of melancholy serenades in the vein of understated folk.
It took four years to release Aimless Love (Oh Boy, 1984), a mildly
entertaining but hardly revolutionary work (Unwed Fathers).
German Afternoons (Oh Boy, 1986), in a more traditionally country sound,
yielded two of his best ballads (Paradise, I Just Wanna Dance)
but little else.
Then it took Prine five years to produce a follow-up, but this time the
come-back The Missing Years (Oh Boy, 1991) was worth the waiting.
Aided by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Tom Petty, Prine
delivered a batch of powerful parables (Jesus The Missing Years,
The Sins Of Mephisto) and
an overall feeling of moral apocalypse. This album stands as his second
masterpiece, and the fourth essential album of his career.
Four more years brought Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (1995), but the
results were not as engaging.
Another disappointment was In Spite of Ourselves (Oh Boy, 1999), a
collection of duets with country divas.
Souvenirs (Oh Boy, 2000) is an anthology.
Fair & Square (2005) marked a return to his gentle charming folk roots
in an age of trouble (the Bush wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Katrina
flooding in New Orleans) and songs like Glory of True Love evoked
a more graceful era.
The Singing Mailman Delivers 2011) collects lost recordings from 1970.
For Better, or Worse (2016) was another album of duets with country divas.
The Tree of Forgiveness (2018), Prine's first album of new music since 2005, ends with the touching ragtime singalong When I Get To Heaven.
Prine died in 2020 during the covid-19 epidemic.
