John Prine
by John Prine

From poppmusic TOP 100 COMMENTER 07/17/2017 20:13 | #194499 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

"John Prine" is a delightful folk album easily up there with the likes of "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme", "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" or "Sweet Baby James." Admittedly, it's greatest weakness is that the songs can sometimes be a hair trite ("Hello In There") However, the album works very well as a whole, featuring an excellent mixture of material while remaining squarely in the folk genre. We have the humorous country of "Spanish Pipedream", the bluesy "Pretty Good", the zydeco of "Flashback Blues", and the George Harrison influenced sweep of "Angel from Montgomery."

I must reserve special praise for the bluegrass "Paradise", now here is a song: Prine wrote this story of a small town overun by coal interests from his own personal experience. How incredibly cool that the town was called "Paradise" and it was on the "Green River", you can literally find all of this on Google maps! The end result: a song as personal and immediate as it is enduring and even mythological: you can literally feel a classic American song being born. Just brilliant.

Prine said that he has trouble listening to this album because of the nervous shake in his voice, present on songs like "Donald and Lydia." Really, this adds a lot of character and warmth to his singing. Imagine hearing a record today with that kind of nervous shake! I miss the 70s.

From Romanelli TOP 100 COMMENTER 03/10/2011 13:51 | #19068 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

John Prine is one of America's most underrated songwriters period. This album, his debut, is loaded with classic songs. "Illegal Smile" became the pot smokers anthem. "Spanish Pipedream" (She was a level headed dancer/On the road to alcohol"). "Sam Stone" (There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes). And on and on. Most artists never get this many good songs in one career. Prine got them all in one shot. An absolute classic album.

From notapawn88 01/22/2017 19:57 | #183904 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

I've just started wandering into the realm of country music. I've lived in NYC my whole life so I really haven't experienced much country music. However, I listened to this album on the subway yesterday and I cried through the whole thing. One of the most powerful albums I've heard in a long time. (Edited)

It's a real shame this album's only on one list (mine) and rarely gets mentioned in the realm of great albums. Songs I would rank a "10" include Sam Stone, Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Any More, Spanish Pipedream, Paradise, Hello in There, Angel from Montgomery and Donald and Lydia. Overall a very strong album, with no throw-in songs- just lyrics of unmatched wit and wisdom and poignancy. If you like a little twang and enjoy a songwriter who treats you you like an adult while at the same time appealing to the child within, then git yourself some John Prine today.

From ffudnebbuh TOP 100 COMMENTER 12/08/2009 03:36 | #7546 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

This is really a great album, when I worked as a buyer for our chain, it was a constant seller. We probably sold 30 every month in the late 70s, which is good for a catalogue album(what an album is called after it goes off the Billboard charts), I think that the number was Atlantic SD 19156 which is the revised number, can't remember the original number.