WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 746 - John Prine

Episode Date: September 28, 2016

If you're wondering how John Prine, one of America's greatest living songwriters, came up with such great lyrics, just look to your mailbox. John tells Marc how his days as a mailman provided him time to ruminate on music, which led to his discovery by Kris Kristofferson, his friendship with Steve Goodman, and his encounters with Bob Dylan, Sam Phillips, Bonnie Raitt and others. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucking udders? What the fuckabillies? What the fuckleberries? Yeah, how are you? Mark Maron here. This is my podcast WTF. Welcome. Nice to have you. Welcome back. You were here last week and welcome to all the newcomers. You're in a safe place. Yeah, it's been a crazy few days. I could tell you about it. My birthday was Tuesday. I turned 53 years old and I'd like to share with you exactly how that went I'll tell you some a little bit

about my uh my secret life that you don't always know about sometimes I take gigs sometimes I use my skills that I've honed and and whatever it is that I do in here sometimes I take them out and I I I'm a I'm a moderator a talker to a people for hire on occasion for big events and you know they're they're not exactly what i do in here but there's something different and there's a different way i can use whatever skill set i've uh come upon but uh all right so you guys know on saturday night i did two shows at the wilbur and then uh sunday i came home and got my shit together monday morning i went to work at the show shooting glow with the ladies i shot till about 4 30 took a shower in my trailer

a car came and picked me up took me to lax flew to dallas texas uh got there at one in the morning checked into the omni hotel which seemed to be uh situated in some futuristic landscape that seemed to be devoid of a city i did not see a city i don't know how dallas works but there was no sort of figuring it out then checked intoed into a suite, set my phone, had just, all I had was one bag, one night, just brought a shirt and some underwear and my socks, new socks, toiletries. Got up the next morning, swept for about three hours, woke up 6.45, went downstairs, met the guy in charge of the event. 645, went downstairs, met the guy in charge of the event, met Dr. Michio Kaku, the physicist.

And then we went over to the convention center, which is connected to the Omni, to be in conversation at shop.org's retail digital summit 2016. We were the keynote event. I was going to talk to Dr. kaku about the future for 45 minutes did a little meet and greet with strangers took a few photos with the good doctor then uh did a dry run check the sound and there we were in a convention center in front of about a thousand people some of them hung over some of them eating breakfast some of them drinking coffee a lot of them looking at their phones and we went through the uh the sort of traditionally stiff keynote speaker at a conference event and uh it was a little dicey at first because it's not my uh it's not necessarily my wheelhouse but dr cacu is an interesting dude i should probably get him in here and but you know he has his uh his riff he has his uh his angle his speculations

i have my curiosity unfortunately i'm not always upbeat about the future and it seems to me that everything that could be seen as a positive about the future can be horrifying. So I played with the idea of interviewing him in front of a hopeful and excited room full of digital retailers and just everything he talked about happening. I would just go, oh, God, no, no, not that. Oh, God, you mean they'll just be able to read our minds? We're just going to have a contact lens in our eye that we can blink and shop with and go on the Internet? Oh, God. What about our souls?

I didn't do that. I played ball. We had a nice chat. It got interesting because there is a, you know, he sort of, he has a few angles that he works. And then at some point, I just broke down and went straight up WTF on him. And I said, tell me what is a day? What does a physicist do in a day? And he was very funny.

He said, basically, we try to finish up where Einstein left off. And that set me up for a couple of nice jokes. And I woke up the people. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Then I got out, spent an hour sitting, trying not to fall asleep, got a car, went back to the airport, flew home. That was my birthday morning.

Yeah, exciting stuff. God, some part of me thinks I should have went, oh no, I can't. No no you mean you'll be able to talk to all your appliances oh god what about humanity did not do it next time i'll tell you maybe when i get him in here maybe when i get him in here today on the show, the Honorable John Prine, one of America's great songwriters, will be here to talk. I was definitely humbled and excited to talk to Mr. Prine. I'd seen him a while back when I went to see that Bright Eyes kid. He was good. But speaking of music, the singer-songwriter margo price who i love

will be on the show here in a couple weeks but uh she's a great country artist and she's new and she's just uh spectacular and she's heading out on tour this weekend she starts in austin texas this sunday and then she's heading out all over the country go to margoprice.net for tour dates and tickets I love her it's one of her album her first album the solo album on uh third man it's one of the great great country records and I'll stand behind that against any country record okay you hearing me by the way I just want to reiterate i did what i tried to watch a bit of debates on my phone but i was traveling but i got the gist of it and again i want to state in the most sensitive and empathetic way possible i understand uh some of my listeners are republicans and we all have

different opinions uh about who should be, what the world should be. Maybe some of us have like-mindedness. But I do want to state in a different tone, just as a public service, with an open heart, that if you believe in Donald Trump, if you believe in him, period, not think he's a good leader, not anything else, because I can't even register that. If you believe in him and that he is the right guy and a good man to be president of the United States,

I just want to say this kindly, you're a fucking moron. See, now that was a little condescending. Let me try to do it empathetically. You're a fucking moron. No, still a little. You're a fucking moron. Um, no, it's still a little, it's hard to say that. Um, I'm sorry,

but no, see, that's, that's not the right tone. Well, you're a fucking moron and, um, and you're a sucker.

See, that's hard. Hard to say those kinds of words that are very descriptive and don't mean good things about a person. But, uh, but you, you get the idea. Yeah. I think, and it's not a matter of whether you like hillary or not many you don't and it doesn't matter if you're a republican or not because if you're a republican and you're going to support

him for any reason um you're an embarrassment to your party and you're a fucking moron and a sucker. Is that nice? Seriously. Seriously. I don't care what you do with your vote. Just if you put it with him, moron, sucker, bad American. That's all the politics for today, folks.

I hope you enjoyed that political moment. Oh, also, here's a little something about me, another part of my secret life, but I think I might have brought this up. I'm in a movie that's opening. If you want to check it out, it's called Flock of Dudes. It comes out tomorrow nationwide to select theaters, and you can get it on iTunes. I'm in it with Chris D'Elia, Eric Andre, Hannibal Buress, Brett Gelman, Jeffrey Ross, Kumail Nanjiani, and Ray Liotta. It's a hell of a cast.

Go to flockofdudesmovie.com to check out the trailer and get tickets. I felt confidently funny in the one scene that I had. I know I was funny. I know I was wearing a tie. So I know that, and I I know I was wearing a tie. So I know that. And I do know that at that time, Eric Andre and I were not getting along. And as some of you who listen to the show regularly,

you know that we made up. We are getting along now. And everything is copacetic. So you want to know more about my birthday? I had an amazing dinner. I'm just, you know, easing into my birthday? I had an amazing dinner. I'm just, you know, easing into John Prine. My mommy called me on my birthday and sang happy birthday in a little girl voice, not on purpose. It was nice of her, but it makes me a little uncomfortable.

My dad called me to tell me he was driving across country he was in ohio and that uh that carnegie hall should be great for me because everything sounds good there from what he hears the acoustics are very good so that was a a positive thing my brother wished me a happy birthday so many people wish me a happy birthday it's nice i'm 53 i think I feel like this is a pivotal age. I feel like that I'm entering old man-ness in earnest. 53. I'm not saying I'm an old man, but this is a transition. I'm now 50-something, as a woman on Twitter said. Now I'm officially 50-something.

I don't have a problem with it. I don't feel that much different. I think my knees are giving out a little bit, though. But maybe that's just today. I don't know that much different. I think my knees are giving out a little bit, though. But maybe that's just today. I don't know. I'm tired. So, Sarah and I went out to, you know the actor Andre Royo? Well, he's been a guest on this show.

And way back when he was a guest on this show, he played Bubbles on The Wire. Great actor. And he had mentioned that his wife, Jane Choi, has this restaurant in Atwater called Canale. I hope that's how you pronounce it. But the place was fucking great. I'm just going to tell you about the food. They make these giant ciabatta breads that are astounding. They're moist with like olive oil and they're crispy on the outside. And for an appetizer, we got a

melon and cucumber salad with some feta cheese on it and a plate of shishito peppers, you know, pan fried, pan roasted with an egg on top with garlic in it, maybe some shallots in there. I'm not sure. And then I ordered a, a salt roasted branzino and there's this sort of parsley uh onion and caper salad that comes with it and sarah got this vegetarian uh chickpea dish with some sort of chickpea pancake i believe and then for dessert it came out with candles so that phone call paid off came out because i knew it was my birthday a ricotta pound cake with fresh whipped cream and strawberries and a few candles on it. Spectacular. And I've decided, fuck it, man.

What good is life if you don't eat ricotta pound cake when it's available? Or ricotta cheesecake, for that matter. And I want to thank Andre and his wife, Jane, for treating me to dinner. That was very nice and unexpected. And I'm doing it publicly because I believe, I believe I like that restaurant. It was fucking good. Now, John Prine, an American master,

an amazing storyteller, an amazing songwriter, a beautiful guitar player, a guy with a history, a man who has been humbled in a lot of ways and has a beautiful, slightly cynical, slightly dark, poetic take on humanity. I mean, he's amazing. He's put out, I think, over 20 albums in his career and his new album coming out tomorrow. it's called For Better or Worse. It's an album of duets. He's singing with Alison Krauss, Miranda Lambert, Fiona Prine, Amanda Shires. You can get it on iTunes and Amazon and wherever you get music.

And here's the thing that I realized about John Prine. All his songs are terrific. But he's one of those guys, not unlike a lot of musicians I've talked to, where a lot of people know him for a few songs. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know why? You know why?

Because even on his first fucking album, 1971, the first album, I believe it was self-titled, on that record, you have sam stone and you have angel from montgomery sam stone and angel from montgomery are two of the greatest american songs ever written no doubt there's no arguing that like i listened to sam stone before i talked to prime tears tears every fucking time i listened to it angel from montgomery whether he's singing it or whether bonnie ray singing it mind-blowing deep emotion not quite tears with angel from montgomery because uh there's something confident about that one sam stone is just brutal and beautiful. And Dear Abby, Six O'Clock News,

Hello in There. All these songs are timeless and perfect. And if you can do that in your lifetime, if you can make one or two or five or up to 20, as John has, amazing things that will outlive you and be timeless. What else, what more can you do? You've done it. But I'll tell you, man, just listen to me. Do me a favor. After you listen to me talk to John, go listen to Sam Stone, John. Go listen to Sam Stone and then listen to Angel from Montgomery and then listen to Hello in there. Now, there's a lot of other songs, and I know that if you're a John Prine fan, you're like, come on, dude. Those are just a big one. Everyone knows those. That's okay. A lot of people listening might never have heard of John Prine, and I'll go with those. I'll go with those. Sam Stone, man. Ah, anyways, it was a complete mind bending honor to talk to John Prine. And that's what

you're going to listen to me do right now. Yeah. You know, I, I don't know what to do with the clutter. You got a room like this at home? Where is that? I live in Nashville. Yeah. Any room that they leave to me, my wife leaves to me. Yeah. I love it when she goes in to straighten it up.

Yeah. I can't find anything if she straightens it up. There's an order to it and it's sort of, it's cozy. You know, the more stuff you're surrounded by

from your life. What do you got in there? Junk, basically. But I think it's really important for some reason because I've kept it and about every three years I'll find something

I haven't seen in years and years. Yeah. And I'll put it back. Yeah. Why I don't throw it away, I don't know. You know, I wonder about that too, you know, when I sit in here. Because I think like, you know, maybe I could just get rid of a lot of this stuff.

And a lot of the stuff that, you know, I don't know if I take time to look at it or not. But like you said, sometimes you have that moment with something and it'll take you somewhere. Even if it's for a second. And I just don't want to turn around and put it in a waste basket right or throw it away because then you know that you've lost a time travel machine yeah i mean it would be good if it was like cash or something you stashed away right right the surprise cash yeah right yeah i don't i don't think I have any of that. Do you? I haven't found it yet. How long have you lived down there?

Lived in Nashville since 1980. I moved there from Chicago. I was born and raised in the western suburbs of Chicago. Yeah? Like, what town? Maywood. Yeah? Right off of Madison, so we were neither north side or south side. Like, we were half a block off of Madison.

Yeah? And what did your old man do? He was a tool and die maker at the American Can Company. Oh, really? Yeah. He'd moved up there in the 30s from western Kentucky to get factory work because there was no, unless you wanted to work in the mines or your family had a little

business or something, there wasn't really a lot of work in that part of Kentucky. So him and a lot of his cousins and stuff drifted up towards Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago for factory work. And if you did get work, you usually sent for somebody else back home and they'd come

live with us and they'd try it out and either move back to... My dad always thought that he was going to go back to Kentucky. So he raised us as if we were from Kentucky, even though we were born and raised in the Chicago area. And what does that mean to be raised like you're from Kentucky? Well, he always thought that he was going to make enough money to move back there. Right. He rented the same house for 38 years.

He could have paid for it three times. In his mind, we're all going back. Right. I remember in particular, they asked us at school, Right. I remember in particular, they asked us at school, this was like third grade or something, go home and find out what your origins are, where your parents are from, what countries. And the next day in school, a little girl in front of me stands up and goes, well, my mother's family's from Sweden and my father's family's from Germany.

And I stand up and I go, pure Kentuckian, the last of last of a dying breed you know that's what my dad taught us to say here yeah so there was a southern pride yeah but we were Chicago kids and yeah but we sure appreciated Kentucky because of his and his and our mother's enthusiasm for the area that's where they were both from and and is that what now what kind of what kind of um situation was there down there because i i don't know much about kentucky but i'm always taken with hearing stories about the the south because there seems to be a much more elaborate and sometimes gothic history of that region like i've been to lexington but i don't know what that's totally different right that's going's going towards eastern Kentucky. And Lexington is very, well, because of the horse farms and everything, it's kind of.

High class. Yeah, high class. But also not far from Lexington is you'll find towns that aren't, you know, they're just barely going. Yeah, a few miles away there's a little, not much indoor plumbing necessarily. And eastern Kentucky. Yeah. Far eastern, right by the West Virginia border, that's totally different. That's Rio Appalachia.

That's Hatfields and McCoys. Yeah, sure. And where was your family from? They were western part of Kentucky. I live in Nashville now, and if I go 90 miles straight north, I'm in Muhlenberg County, and that's where my parents are from. You're in the land of your origin. Exactly. And when you were growing up, did you spend time down there? Did your grandfathers?

Mainly in the summer times. Yeah? I'd go down and visit aunts and uncles. Big family. My granddad. Big family, and we still have a family reunion where we all. Uh-huh. These are all my mom's sisters and my dad's family.

They're all gone. Uh-huh. And the cousins still get together. Your cousins. Yeah. Some of them you haven't met before. They're children. Sure.

They're grandchildren. It was kind of the idea my mother told me as we were growing up and going to the family reunion that she always hoped that after their day had gone that the kids once a year tried to get together and keep in touch with your family, which is mostly a good idea. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, and sometimes it's very interesting. It's like Thanksgiving and Labor Day. Right.

So are we talking, you know, 50, 100s, 30? Sometimes it's as little as 30. Yeah. And sometimes it'll be up around 90. No kidding. Yeah, and what's great now is a lot of them i hardly know i have to ask the kid little kids i don't know who yeah right but it goes over a period of three four days we spend it right together in kentucky yeah is there still family property there or you just

meet there no there's no family property nobody had nobody had any savings on the Lowe family property. And where did you first hear the music that moved you to do music? Like your grandfather, what kind of man was he? I don't know if they're connected, but I'm placing it in Kentucky. Both my grandfathers were from Kentucky. One was a carpenter. That was my father's father. And as soon as he would get done with the job, he would pull his family up and move.

Oh yeah? To the next city for the next carpenter job. My dad went to something like nine different elementary schools, up north and down in the south. He had a southern accent and he stuttered. And he was the new kid in school. Oh, no.

So he said he learned how to fight, like, right away, you know? Tough guy. Yeah. And who played music? What was the music in the house? It was the radio. My dad loved country music. Yeah.

He'd play. He'd sit at night, and he'd drink beer by the court because he claimed it was more like draft beer. Uh-huh. You know, if you sat there and poured a beer by the court because he claimed uh it was more like draft beer uh-huh you know if you sat there and poured a glass yeah from the court yeah and he'd have the radio sideways an old zenith in the kitchen window yeah facing the south and we had a good country station in chicago wjjd but on the weekends you could pick up the grand ole opry if if you tilted it right the weather was right If you tilted it right. The weather was right and you tilted it right.

And he'd sit in there with his quarts of beer and have me sitting next to him with an orange pop and I'd be listening to Webb Pierce and Johnny Cash. Yeah. You know, Hank Williams Sr. and just all this stuff and I listened to it because of my dad's love for it. Uh-huh. You know, I realized that many years later.

But meanwhile, I was growing up listening to rock and roll. Sure. And I had an oldest, my oldest brother Dave, who's 10 years older than me, decided to teach himself to play guitar and fiddle and mandolin, and he needed somebody to play with him for rhythm right right so he taught me how to play old-timey country music like just uh three chords yeah uh-huh and after i learned him when i wasn't accompanying him uh i tried to play my some of my favorite songs yeah and they didn't sound like the records so i made up my own words and That was it? I started doing it since I was 14.

And was he playing bluegrass music with those instruments? Not quite bluegrass. It was a precursor to bluegrass. They were referred to as old-timey music. Uh-huh. So who would those artists be? Oh, boy. Like old-timey country, like swing music?

Yeah, I'll tell you who revived it was during the big folk thing of the late 50s and early 60s. Yeah. It was New Lost City Ramblers. Okay. They went and got a lot of those archival stuff. Right, right, right. And brought them back again.

Right. What was their label? You know, were they on? They were on Vanguard, I think. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. I think you're right. Yeah, again. Right. What was their label? You know, were they on a... They were on Vanguard, I think. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're right. Yeah, yeah. Right.

So it's interesting about that, about that folk revival and just sort of this digging through the musical pile of America, that it was a real conscious thing. It was a reaction, wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was. Yeah.

And it seems like it's coming around uh we spend a lot of time over in ireland because my wife's from there oh that's the most beautiful place in the world it's gorgeous we're getting ready to go over for about a month and a half this summer oh you lucky bastard yeah i love it i love it we we got a place in galway oh my god i i envy you i i you know it's like i'm not i've got no roots there you know my roots are eastern european jew and for some reason i go to ireland and i'm like i feel like i'm home this place is it's beautiful it really is does she have family there yeah that's what we go back she's got five sisters still and they're all in? And her mother, yeah. No kidding? Yeah, they're all in Ireland.

And Fiona and I, we had a long-distance romance in the late 80s, early 90s. No kidding? And I'd go over there whenever I had more than a week off. How'd you meet her? I met her at, I did a couple of shows over there. We did a festival that was around, what they were doing was getting guys like me and Guy Clark and American folk and singer-songwriters together with Irish bands.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. And we did about three days in Dublin. At the Vic? No, no. This is a venue that became the venue. Oh, the Vicar is what I was at. The Vicar, I think, is where I was at. Yeah, Vicar Street.

This was the old, it was down by the river. I forget what they called it then. We were the first music in there. It was the old train station, maybe? Uh-huh, uh-huh. So American folk artists with Irish bands. Yeah. I think they're still doing that.

Yeah, my wife, Fiona, she worked at one of the big studios in Dublin. She managed it. Uh-huh. And where U2 cut and everything. Uh-huh. So she was in on the music scene there, and she came down to hear these things. They call it the sessions. Uh-huh.

And that's how we met. Uh-huh. Did she know you before? She said she came and saw me when she was 16 years old. That would have been the first time that I ever played Ireland. And what year would that have been? That would have been 1980. Okay.

So she came to see me. She's been thinking about you ever since? Well, I was in the back of her mind at least. You made an impression. Exactly. After the sessions, after this thing, they threw a party for all the artists. And it was a horseshoe-shaped bar. Yeah.

And a buddy of mine was standing about 10 feet away from me, holding a guitar up and saying, Hey, John, come on over over let's play a few tunes i couldn't physically get from where i was to him because the bar was like 10 deep at each yeah yeah yeah so i had to go around the long end the far end of the bar yeah and that's where she was standing uh-huh and a little red-headed uh blues singer that i knew in ireland yeah and her just said come here john prine meet this girl and we've been together ever since so that's sweet so you guys have been together since 1981 80 1980 1980

and this is you've been married you've been married before twice yeah that's the music business yeah that's the music business you stay the road. Yeah, and those are the songs. You know, it's a sad fact, but it's true. It is, right? Some of the best songs are written, if you're a songwriter, and somebody breaks your heart, boy, there's some great songs down there. Yeah, yeah. There really is.

Yeah, but you get to a point, maybe I don't know if you've gotten to this point, where you're like, I don't know if I need another one. No, I know I don't. Yeah, I know I don't know if you've gotten to this point where you're like, I don't know if I need another one. No, I know I don't. Yeah, I know I don't. You know, sometimes when I'm going through periods of not writing, you don't know what to say to me. What do I have to do, leave you in order to get you to write a song? Well, when you were writing the songs,

the Ireland thing, though, we were sort of talking about folk music. And I felt like we were moving in a direction where you were about to talk maybe about the folk music of Ireland. I noticed this is about seven, eight years ago that the buskers on the street out in Galway and Dublin were starting to play the old timey songs. The country songs. No kidding. Like pre-Bluegrass. Uh-huh. That was becoming popular amongst, I'm talking about 18, 19, 20-year-olds. Yeah.

And here I'm going, how did they hear that? Right. Why is that becoming popular again? Isn't that interesting? It really is. And it does it on its own. And it's also some sort of full circle because those, I think those Celtic rhythms are definitely part of the Appalachian catalog. That's where it started.

It came from Scotland and Ireland. Right, right. That rhythm and the way of playing. Yeah. And I think some of the fiddle too, right? And the ballads about taking a girl down to the river. Sure. Murdering her and drowning her.

All those happy Celtic themes. That was a successful date. Oh, my God. But when you started out, so you're listening to Grand Ole Opry music and your brother's doing that type of music, the old-timey music, and your dad's listening to what's becoming modern country or the great country artists, and you're listening to rock and roll,

and the folk explosion certainly hadn't happened yet. So what are you fiddling around with? I went with the way my brother taught me to play, which was old-timey music and bluegrass. Right. And it was familiar to you because you listened to country. Yeah, and I would, so I wrote my songs

with the only way I knew how, if my brother would have been a big Chuck Berry fan, maybe I would have learned electric right from the start and wrote my songs to a different, a blues sort of bass thing. But it just happened

that that's the way he taught me. Yeah. And I wasn't going to go to somebody else and learn how to play. Rock and roll. Yeah. Well, you're probably better off, you know, given the thoughtfulness of the lyrics and the sort of, you know, you want the lyrics to be up front.

Right. You know, and there's something about country music that lends itself to putting the lyrics up front. It's about the, it's about the story. If you're not Chuck Berry, it's hard to tell a story in rock and roll. I think that's true.

I think that's really true. And I think like, I get what you're saying about the, cause it seems to me that, you know, just getting back to that, you starting to hear that old time in music on the streets in Ireland, sort of led to,

you know, the Mumford and sons and the, you know, and a sort of resurgence of singer songwriters in that vein. We're seeing a lot of that now. It's sort of an amazing thing because your generation of guys are the guys right before you. I mean, there were some heavy dudes around back then that did thoughtful, you know, I think it's primarily country music i guess you could call it folk music what do you call your music uh pretty

good it's country music right yeah it's but you go to nashville when i first got to nashville yeah i didn't move there to become a country star. Sure. I just moved there because that's where I was having fun. Well, yeah, and it's interesting, though, because your music is straightforward and it does come from that source that I notice in a lot of the records, the tone of the record, you're always going to be you. You're going to write John Prine songs.

You're going to play John Prine songs. But depending on who's in the studio with you or who's producing the album and what they're going to play john prine songs but depending on who's in the studio with you or who's producing the the the album and what they're going to bring to it it really it it changes the sound and i guess uh when you do that like i listened to the record um which one did i listen to pink cadillac yesterday that you know you're working with some of the sun guys some of phillips guys and this and then sam come in and did two songs on us. Yeah, but this is Sam, what, in his 70s, right?

Yeah, but he was... He was on it? He was on it. He's a wizard, right? I think initially he came in the studio because he saw his boys were doing a project and he wanted to give them an extra push. Oh, really?

I think so. I don't think it was my singing ability that drew Sam Phillips to it. But you were a known guy. Sam claims he heard my voice. He thought it was so bad that he would stick around and try and fix it. That's what he said. Is he still around? No, Sam passed about eight, nine years ago.

I talked to Peter Grolnick about his book about some record. Amazing book. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it goes all the way back. When you met him, were you at the original place in Memphis? Well, they had sold that. Oh, yeah, now it's like a museum.

It became a museum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Sam in 61 had built a Sam Phillips recording service on Madison, and that's where we ended up cutting. And what was it? Because it was a different record. I mean, it was a dramatically different approach. And when you were in conversation with someone like Sam Phillips

about your John Prine songs, what did he bring to them? What did his boys bring to him? What was their idea? Sam spoke in parables. He looked also like a character from the Bible. He had these big bushy eyebrows. I think he saw himself as a character from the Bible. He would get in your face and he looked like the burning bush was behind him, you know?

And he'd tell us, like on on a ballot, he would say, oh, now you boys are walking down the street and you're covering both sides of the street. That is so nice. And then he'd go, now let's talk about sex. You know? Yeah, yeah. He said, I want something like,

he said, I want to do push-ups, too, you know? Yeah, yeah. And he would get, like, all of a sudden, like a preacher, you know? No kidding. Yeah, so, like, it was pretty so it was just cool working with him. Yeah, yeah. And do you like that record?

I love it. Yeah. I love it. When we delivered that record to Asylum Records out here in L.A., boy, about five guys listened to it, and then four of them left the room. And one guy leaned over to me and he said, John, i don't

think what you have here is what you want and i thought wait a second what did he just say right yeah yeah you know they just uh they the the kind of records that were on the charts then was squeaky clean they were good music now ste Steely Dan. Sure. You know, making great records. Right. But it was perfect technical stuff. Right. And the Eagles were making perfectly technical records. All good music and everything, but I wanted some noise. Yeah. I wanted it to sound like five individuals in a room bumping into things.

Yeah. You know. Playing. And playing. Being in it. We paid for the noise, and they didn't appreciate it. Was that one of those moments where you're like, I've got to start my own label?

That was probably the beginning of it for me. I had one more record I owed them, and I went and did it kind of half-hearted and said, that's it. What, that was the next record? Yeah, Stormwindows, which was actually more songs I'd written for Pink cadillac but we left overs yeah yeah yeah but let's go back because you know this is an amazing thing about your your presence in music and i and i don't know anybody else other than and i don't know if

people make this comparison i imagine i'm not that original but it but uh that there's very few people who are respected for their poetry and for their songs as much as, like you and Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen sort of holds his place. He does. And there's about four records there that are undeniable masterpieces. And I think you're the same guy. You're in the same place. I listened to Sam the same guy. You're in the same place. You know, like I listened

to Sam Stone this morning. And I think most people, if they don't know that song, should know that song. So I listened to that song and I'm crying, you know, again. Now, you know, when that song came out of your heart and your mind and that, you know, that is one of your most well-known songs and the power of that song transcends you know war conflict or anything you know and and speaks to a a darkness and a pain that that is you know uh eternally human right what do you think of that song do you feel that do you feel like if you if that were the only song you had written that you would be like that's a great song? I did feel all that about that song

when I wrote it. Also though I thought that that song if somebody would have made me a bet I would have thought that the appeal of that song might have gone, this was 1971 when I put it on record I thought by 75 or 76 that

would be a song because some some songs there are deemed yeah yeah they wear themselves out you go on the right time marches on and I didn't know that that song would stay those veterans are still around and yeah the veterans from other conflicts are still coming home sure up and right messed up they get they get uh oh they go through all this training to go to combat and then come back and nobody it's like people are incarcerated yeah they just throw them back out on the street and say okay man you're a citizen again yeah good luck yeah good yeah yeah yeah if you need some health coverage we got a place yeah you can come check

in occasionally you can find it yeah yeah no the tragedy of that and also the tragedy of of you know american life on a certain level too i mean there's something that spoke to that in those songs and and some of the other masterpieces uh you you know uh uh you know angel from montgomery was another one that that was a window in to a a sort of american heartache that never goes away do you know yeah um um when i wrote those songs i think i was trying to explain things to myself uh-huh more so than uh finding audience for because i thought it was a hobby for me i didn't think i was what songwriting yeah i didn't think this was something that you could make a living out of uh-huh and and and surprise oh yeah exactly yeah but the other thing that's amazing about those songs and about your particular song craft is there's a simplicity to it, but the turns of phrase are so fucking good.

It's like you deliver the first line of the cup with, and you're kind of like, what's going to happen? Oh, yeah. You know, and it's so tight, and it's so economic. And I know you probably hear that about your poetry and about your songwriting a lot, but how much, when you sit with a song, how much word math do you do? It's, when you got a good one,

I can hardly write fast enough. I feel like a scorched stenographer. I feel like I'm taking the song down and putting my name on it uh-huh but i was just the first one to hear it like you know yeah yeah it comes in like all tied up in a bow oh right so a whole thing it's there yeah and there's other ones you got to work on right and i don't like it when it appears that you've done too much work on it because it shows to me, especially with repeated performances of a song where you know you really had to work and patch and glue things.

But don't you think you might be the only one that knows that? Probably. Probably, unless I tell somebody they don't know that. Unless you get off stage and go like, I can't listen to that coming out of my head anymore. But like other songs that make me cry, Souvenirs, wow, that, you know, even Sour Grace, which is a little more, it's not as heavy, but Souvenirs is like heavy, man.

I mean, you know, it's beautiful, but it's heavy. Now, when you release these things into the world or when they move through you, do you feel a relief? Because I saw you here a while back when Connor opened for you. Right, at the Greek. Yeah, and that was amazing because you're traveling pretty lean. The band is a guy on bass, sometimes stand-up bass,

and that kind of miraculous guitar player you got there. Yeah, he's great, Jason Wilber. Yeah, and the drummer, and you. And Connor, what was very funny is that, because I talked to Connor, you listen to him, and he's sort of a natural songwriter. It's a weird, natural gift for him. Yes. And with songwriters, the guys I've encountered,

I want them to be heavy-hearted dudes that live a hard life, but some of them, they just got a thing. He's got a thing. And he's up there with a full band, and he's spitting and dancing and putting everything he's got into it, and it's good. But then you come out just with your gravitas and you being you and your lean little outfit there, and everybody quiets down. And it's just a beautifully balanced evening of a dude

that we can all just sort of relax. He doesn't have to jump around. The songs will speak for himself. He's going to say some funny stuff, and we're all going to be moved. Real professional. Well, it took me a long time to settle down and enjoy that oh yeah yeah first 20 years or so i i kept thinking somebody's gonna throw something at me or stand up and go what in the hell are you doing up there you know really yeah i mean that just stayed with me because did that happen were

you playing in those environments? No, not really. I was well accepted from the get-go. But you just had it in your head? It was in my head. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be found out. It was like eight months after I first stepped on a stage that I had a record contract.

See, that's interesting. I sang for the first four months. I didn't quit the post office because I was like, don't quit your day job. Right, yeah. I don't know what's going to happen. And I started making three times the cash that I was making with a regular salary at the post office. I would get that in cash under the table for singing.

That's my hobby, singing songs. Three nights a week. I could sleep the rest of the week. I was at the pinnacle. Yeah, that was it. You made it. This is it. I'm fooling him.

I got it. So that's what you did. So you were playing songs when you were a kid, and you were playing with your brother, and then that was your job? You were a mailman? Yeah. How was that for you?

It was like being in a library with no books. You'd go out on your mail route and spend six hours out there walking around. And it wasn't like the movies where people go, hello, Mr. Mailman, how are you today? People never talked to me. After three years, one lady, I had a COD for her. That's the first time I saw her. And she said, when's the regular guy coming back? And I said, I am your regular guy.

Was that in Chicago? Yeah, and out even in the further western suburbs. Now tell me, did you write those songs on your mail route? I wrote Hello in there on the mail route. I wrote Sam Stone on the mail route. No kidding. I mean, there's not a lot to do once you're on the right street. Now, with Hello in there, was that provoked by a moment?

The best I can remember is me hearing John Lennon sing Across the Universe. And if I remember right, it had quite a bit of echo or reverb on his voice. Yeah. And I got to thinking about... It does have a lot of echo, yeah. About talking into like a hollow log and going, hello. Yeah.

Hello in there. And that led to thinking about talking to a person that trying to get through to him. Yeah. And then that led to talking about old people. Yeah. And then that led to talking about old people. Yeah. And that's how it came about. Yeah.

And I like picking names. Back in my early songs, I loved picking the right names for the right characters. Uh-huh. You know, Donald and Lydia and the guy Rudy in Hello in There. Rudy was the dog across the street the lady would come out at four o'clock every afternoon and go Rudy Rudy you know he's coming for dinner yeah yeah I went that's the name of this guy's buddy Rudy yeah yeah yeah I just like getting like the sounds of names well

that well that's that's an important thing about it you know I talked to Jason Isbell about that you know where you know it's I had to learn from Nick Lowe. He wrote that song for Johnny Cash, The Beast in Me. Yeah. Hell of a song. Right, sure is. And I just wanted to believe that Nick Lowe lived that life.

I wanted to believe that I was talking to the guy that lived it. It must have been a part of him. Sure. In the song. But he said to me, he said, I write songs. the guy that lived it. It must have been a part of him. Sure. In the song. But he said to me, he said, I write songs. They're not all me. And I'm like, come on, they got to be you.

But I think when you put this emphasis on names, that song starts to take a life of its own. You start to build a life around it. That becomes part of the poetry of it. And those people become real that come out of you, right? Right. So they're part of you, but they're not necessarily you. Exactly.

But they're kind of all of us. Yeah. Right? That's the thing about Hello in there is it's sort of like it's a beautiful sentiment, you know, about respect and understanding of people who are aging and abandoned in a way just by virtue of the fact that they've lived long enough to be ignored right wow man it's heavy shit so you know because they're they are the thing it's like the blues music too where you know you're talking about you know heavy-hearted stuff but the but the release of them through music, it actually has the opposite effect.

I always thought I called my outlook on the world, I called it optimistic pessimism. Yeah. Admit that there is a problem. Right. This is the problem. Give the characters names. Yeah.

And then say it. Yeah. So it's kind of like the blues, getting rid of it. And you just state it. And if there's a humorous aspect to it, then that enters into it too as it does in daily life. People just don't walk around all the time with their head down. It gets so bad, it gets funny.

Sure. You know? It should. Yeah, right. It gets so bad, it gets funny or it gets ugly yeah i mean you can only cry so long until you start laughing about it yeah yeah hopefully again you know that's the best case scenario so now let's talk a little bit about your relationship with uh with steve goodman okay uh you know because steve goodman like i didn't realize until this morning that he passed away so young.

Because I remember he had a lot of records out for a cat who passed away at 36. And I remember seeing him when I was a kid. My parents took me to see him. The City of New Orleans was the big song, right? Right. But you aligned yourself with him pretty early as a producer and as a cohort, right? Well, Steve, he was well into the Chicago folk scene when I came along. What was that scene?

Who was there? Steve Goodman, Fred Holstein, Eddie Holstein, the Holstein brothers. Eddie Holstein the Holstein brothers this was after in the 60s there was a scene evidently in Chicago that it kind of mirrored

the Greenwich Village scene you know and from what I understood and then kind of died out in the late 60s when like psychedelic music

got big and everything like this and then psychedelic music won late 60s in the late 60s when psychedelic music got big and everything like this. And then, Psychedelic music won. Late 60s and early 70s, Steve Goodman came along, I came along, the folk scene started Coming back?

Getting back. So you guys were just two different guys playing? I was thrown into the same well, and Steve was kind of the king of it. He knew every club. Every club owner knew him. Yeah. And Steve came to check me out.

Yeah. And he was like Little Caesar. He was just like Edgar G. Robinson. Steve was about 5'1", and he'd walk up to you and get right in your face and poke his finger in your chest when he's talking to you. And I'm going, who is this guy? I'd heard a tape of him singing City of New Orleans, and I had pictured in my mind that he was a tall beanpole of a guy with a little goatee.

Right. And here this little guy comes in my face. We became immediate friends. And he started taking me around and introducing me to people and it was because of steve that i that i got my first record contract oh yeah even before he did uh-huh it became his shining moment yeah uh he opened some shows for christopherson and christopherson was blown away with steve songs and said man you need to go to new york and get a record contract he says no you need to come across town and listen to my buddy John Fry.

Really? That was the kind of guy Steve Goodman was. It was his lightning bolt moment. And he said, no, no, you got to get in a cab and hear my buddy. He loved you. He really did. And that's when you met Chris Dofferson? Yeah, that's when I met Chris.

Chris came and listened to me at a club where it was closed already. The waitresses were counting the tips. The floor had been mopped. I was waiting to get paid. I had my guitar in the case. Chris comes in with an entourage, and we put four chairs down, and I sat right in front of him on the mic and sang my set.

He bought me a beer and said, would you get back up there and sing those songs again and anything else you have? Yeah. And I did, and Chris was just, he was obviously blown away. He loved it. And at the time. Were you a fan of his?

Yeah, and I couldn't think of more of a person that I wanted to play my songs for more than Chris Kristofferson. Sure. I connected with his stuff that he was country, yet he was doing stuff like Bob Doe. Yeah. He was really saying something in his songs. And there was nobody else I would have rather in the world

played my songs for. And here my buddy Steve Governe dropped them in my lap. Yeah, and play them twice for. Exactly, right. Yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy. Are your memories of that night clear? They are.

I got home, and I sat on the edge of my bed. My first wife, she was asleep, and she woke up, and I just said, man, you won't believe what just happened to me. I said, Chris Christopherson heard my songs, and then he wanted me to sing them all over again. I said, they actually liked me. It was good. And what'd she say? She said, okay, well, go to bed and think about it in the morning.

But it was. That's amazing. It was a moment, you know, that was for sure. Chris was the one that introduced me to Bob Dylan back in 1971. How'd that go? All of a sudden, Chris says, hey, come on over. Carly Simon was opening shows for Chris. Chris said, hey, come on over to Carly's place.

He goes, I got somebody I want you to meet. Me and Goodman go over there, and we're there for about a half hour, and there's a knock at the door. It's Bob Dylan. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, he hadn't been seen in public for about five years.

No kidding. Yeah. Because he had the accident? Right. And he was really trying to be low-key. He was up in Woodstock? Yeah. I think he'd found a place back in the village by then. Oh-key. He was up in Woodstock? Yeah.

I think he'd found a place back in the village by then. Oh, okay. It was close to it. Yeah. And he comes in, and we start passing the guitar around. And about the third song I sing, Bob starts singing with me. And I think, my record's not out yet. I'm thinking, how did he know my songs? He had gotten a Jerry Wexner Atlantic and sent him a free copy.

Oh, yeah? He already knew the words to a couple of my songs. He's checking out the competition. I mean, I wanted to run to a phone booth and call, I don't know who, call home and tell them what I'm doing. This is still the first record? Yeah, this is before everything exploded for me. I'm sitting in New York City playing my songs with Bob Dylan. It was really crazy.

That's crazy. Chris was my biggest supporter. Chris, I got to say that I didn't realize this until after i was in the music business for a while chris didn't introduce me to his manager he didn't introduce me to his publisher uh-huh his label he didn't try and steer me anywhere except towards good people and just let things happen yeah yeah you know and i don't i don't know many people in the music business that wouldn't at least say hey well come on you know with me and i'll publish your music yeah yeah chris didn't want to do anything but good things to me well yeah he's like uh i have no

sense of uh he's a powerful dude as a presence and as a as an artist certainly as a human yeah i have no sense of him as a person because like i don't know him but i know his his songs i know his acting work and i know that like he seems intimidating to me but he's not really i mean yeah he just has that thing about him that yeah yeah he wrote some good songs man well he sure he sure did and he sure put nashville back in a real good place did he how so by writing those songs it uh gave a new standard to uh it opened some doors oh really yeah for nashville people because nashville's country music is very conservative i'm not talking politically. Right.

It takes a lot to change back then. What's entrenched. Yeah, what's entrenched. And Chris came along singing songs, not just love songs, but songs about people being in bed. Yeah. They didn't talk about that. Right, right. Yeah, we assumed that George and Tammy were having sex, but they didn't talk about that. Right, right. You know? Yeah, we assumed that George and Tammy were having sex,

but they didn't talk about it. Exactly. They didn't take the ribbon from their hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Chris, like, just sort of eloquent in his songs, but they were still down at home. Uh-huh. Yeah, and that's something you share with him.

He must have seen you as a kindred spirit. Well, he did, and I didn't believe it. Yeah. It happened just like a dream. Yeah, it's amazing. And I imagine Dylan, like, you know, I can't get a sense of him. How the hell can you? You know, what Dylan are you dealing with?

You know, he's a fascinating guy, and he's obviously written some great songs. But I imagine that Bob Dylan heard your songs and immediately knew it was something that he probably couldn't do. You know what I mean? That, you know, Dylan writes Dylan songs, but your songs are so efficient and poetically beautiful and full of an energy that isn't verbal fireworks necessarily, but something that kind of grows as you hear it. You know, I imagine he was like you know god that guy's just nailing it and it's so tight but there's no way that the i can't say this for christopher's yeah but if bob dylan hadn't come along in the 60s and wrote those uh those songs he did before he went on the electric and the stuff afterwards. None of you would be there. There's no way.

I would have wrote a bluegrass song maybe or something. Yeah. I wouldn't have tried to go through. He not only opened the door for people, he made that door. Yeah. And said, here's the door. Right. Come on in, you know.

And I can't imagine how many people wouldn't have taken that step to be a songwriter or something if Bob hadn't done that first. Right. And I forget, though, you know, like, it's easy to forget just that Bob Dylan has done everything. Yes. That, like, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, you're going to do what you're going to do, and then you're going to look up at the, you know, mountain that is Bob Dylan. Right. And that's what that is. Like, you know, because he did Blood on the Tracks, Nashville Skyline.

He did some very sort of earnest country folk records. And it's because he had a big love for country music. He still does, I believe. Yeah, no. He's out there, too. These guys who are 80 going. I don't think nobody. You did this for so long.

What else are you going to do? I guess that's true. I mean, so you don't want to sit down? No? If you sit down, you're going to rust, you know? Do you go back to the post office? I don't know. No.

Well, what about just not work? And I do that very good. Yeah, you're good at that. I really do. Yeah. I'm good at hiding. I leave the house so it appears to my family that i'm going to work or something uh-huh i don't come home till about five uh-huh yeah yeah this way it still looks like i do something yeah yeah so now the other

guys so you came out so yours is you're sort of the second wave uh folk uh uh revival then so dylan was the first is that how that works uh that's the way i saw it yeah and and who else was in your your group was tim harden one of you guys well because of the way i was brought up yeah it was bob dylan and equal doses of hank williams senior sure because i was trying to impress my dad yeah sure, sure. And I wanted to... Those are good songs. I wrote the song Paradise for my dad. Oh, yeah. That was his story. Uh-huh.

And I wanted him to recognize himself in a song. Did he? He did. My dad died about two months before my first record came out. Mm-hmm. And I was able to play the record for him. I took a tape. I bought a tape player and took a...

I didn't have a vinyl thing on my record yet yeah i had a tape and i played it for him and paradise was the last song on the record and he got up when paradise started and he left the room and he walked into our dining room sat in the dark and then came back in the room and i said, well, what did you leave the room for when I played your song? And he said, I wanted to pretend it was on the jukebox. I thought you were going to say he got choked up. Well, he probably did.

That's why he left the room. He didn't want to show me. Actually, the only time I can remember ever seeing my father cry was when Hank Sr. died. Oh, yeah. I was just a little kid, and I saw my dad sitting by this big radio down in the basement. And the news had come out about Hank Williams dying. Yeah.

And my dad just, like, thought, you know. Fell out, huh? He was the guy for working people and country people. Yeah. He sang what their life was about. Yeah. Great songs, right? Great, great songs.

And his voice was, it had that thing in it. Yeah, yeah. And he was young. What was he, like in his 20s? 27, I think. Isn't that crazy, man? It really is, considering how many great songs he wrote. Yeah, it's amazing.

Like, even with the, you know, I was talking about Buddy Holly the other day, who wrote some pretty amazing songs, and a lot songs you know i think he was pretty young too he was very young and so so cropper and dunn so cropper how do you hook up with him how do you decide to do a record with steve cropper and what were you what were you trying to get did you want some of that stack sound in there i met steve i guess i met him out here and got to talking with him and uh found out he was still back in memphis i made my first record in memphis at the old american studios chips moments place and uh i like there's something about memphis yeah it's only 200 miles from

nashville but it is so different. How so? Memphis is more deep south. Sure. Where Nashville, back then at least, identified more with Charlotte, North Carolina. It was southeastern. Memphis was... Does that mean more big city in a southern

way? I'm wanting to be. Yeah, yeah. I'm wanting to be more a big southern city. Nashville now is bustling. It is a big southern city and nashville now is bustling it's a it is a big oh yeah i love it yeah yeah i love going down there growing like crazy every day i'm surprised jack white hasn't pulled you into the studio yet i have not had the pleasure of meeting jack you have not met him yet no but i love him i love his playing oh what how usually he should get you in there he should get you in there. He'll have you come over for a one-off. He'll just cut a single with you. I don't seek out people.

I prefer bumping into them. How do you not bump into that guy in Nashville? You certainly know him from about a mile away. He's a big, tall dude. Well, I would imagine. Our time will come. Yeah, I hope so. All right, so you do that record with Steve,

and, you know, what's your relationship? How much with, because it looks like you got, you know, Jackson Brown's on there doing his backup vocals, and he's another guy I imagine has a tremendous amount of respect for you. Jackson, I knew real early when he did his first album, he came through Chicago and played the little folk club with Goodman, and I got started. Uh-huh. That's Saturate yeah oh yeah and he had one great song after another on there crazy so we met here at jackson early on and he became a buddy of ours as the few times we came

out to la early on and bonnie and bonnie me and bonnie were buddies from the get-go yeah we used to tour uh her her bass player freebo bonnie bonnie had a dog named prune and bonnie's brother steve um was would drive the station wagon we'd go out and tour together and it was just great she held a guitar player huh oh man i mean bonnie was even at that age when she was in her early 20s, she could play that bottleneck guitar. Yeah. She was not messing around. Yeah.

She learned from the masters, you know. Where did she come from? Barney, you know, her dad was John Wright, the Broadway musicals. Oh, really? The pajama game. He was the guy. No kidding. Yeah.

So she's a New york kid yeah and um they were quakers and uh bonnie was raised i believe i think more out this way uh-huh you know but she went to school around boston and um fell in with that boston uh what was left of the folks thing right in boston which was a heavy-based blues thing yeah yeah you know and um that Boston, what was left of the folks thing in Boston, which was a heavy bass blues thing. Yeah, yeah. That's where she picked it up. She picked it up. That's interesting that she comes from that.

Like John Hammond Jr., another guy. Right. I mean, she came here. Bonnie came from a musical family, but it was a totally different part of music. She just picked up on the blues early on and loved it loved it and that's what she wanted to do you know john hammond junior i admit john i hadn't seen him now in years but hell of a player uh he surely is wow and thank the be the son uh like his dad yeah his dad without his dad no bob dylan and that's his dad

his dad and no billy holiday his that's his dad. No Billie Holiday. His dad's right up there with Sam Phillips. No doubt. Those guys. They knew enough to record the geniuses. They weren't musicians themselves. They were very intuitive to know whether somebody really had something unique. And they would recognize it and give them space to grow.

And also, well, J.D. Souther, another great songwriter. Yes, J.D.'s wonderful. The last time I saw J.D. with me and my kids, one of my boys were out here with me the last couple of days. He reminded me when Snakes on a Plane came out. Me and my boys wanted to go see it. There was nobody in the theater, right? Right.

Just before the lights go down, there's one other guy. It's J.D. Souther. So we go sit with J.D. We all watch Snakes on a Plane. That's weird. That's an odd moment. And is that your brother he played on that record too? On Common Sense?

Let's see. Dave played on a couple of my records, but I don't think he played on Common Sense? Yeah. Let's see, Dave played on a couple of my records, but I don't think he played on Common Sense. On Common Sense, yeah. Yeah? And did he have a music career of his own? My oldest brother, he just had an old-timey band, and they played around Chicago.

Forever? Yeah, my brother was a musician, Dave Prine. He still in Chicago, and Dave was a, my brother was a musician, Dave Prine. He's still in Chicago, and Dave was a whiz kid. Dave was the brain of the family. He actually went to college and got a degree. Yeah. Still around?

Yeah, and he would lecture. He's retired now, but he still plays music. Yeah, you guys tight? We played music down at, oh, yeah, we played music down at the family reunion together. Ah, that's that's great i try and get up there for a cubs game or you know uh-huh and um well that's good that you got the relationship still huh oh definitely i love my brothers and how many you got i had three and we lost one in a couple years about five years ago uh-huh my brother doug yeah he was a retired chicago policeman oh wow living

up in uh northern california oh that's pretty yeah he was a wild one of us he doug was the one that i wanted to be like yeah doug was the guy that drove around on a motorcycle yeah yeah he drive it one block and push it for three blocks yeah so after you did like when you made your own label like that i mean you see and you still have uh old boy record so that was after after storm window so everything after that is all you yes it's all your stuff yep and now and uh and how when you got a new record coming out and soon yeah we got a record uh called for better or worse yeah it's a collection of a a boy girl duets yeah i did that one about 15 years ago called in spite of ourselves yeah we didn't wasn't lucinda on that one uh lucinda was on in spite of ourselves yeah yeah her saying two

hank williams songs aren't in she something lucinda's uh otherworldly, I believe, as a poet and a songwriter. Yeah. She's determined, too. She goes out there and does it. Real deal. Yeah, I've had her in here. She's out on the road all the time, too. Yeah, she's wonderful.

And who's on this one? This one is, we got Alison Krauss. Oh, yeah. Iris DeMint. And I love Iris. And Susan Tedeschi. Oh, yeah. She came in with a George Jones song I'd never heard before.

No kidding. Called The Color of the Blues, and me and her toured up. Man, she turned out to be a real good buddies now. Yeah. All it took was one song. Yeah. And she's just a great performer. Great singer, yeah.

Yeah, and then we got miranda lambert uh-huh and uh casey musgrave and uh some of the new girls you know yeah and um kathy matea uh-huh um whom i leave it now holly williams uh-huh you know she's hank junior's daughter yeah i have uh i have her record We did a song that her grandma was famous for. Oh, really? That Audrey used to sing with Hank Sr. Uh-huh. Called I'm Telling You.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, when she found out that was the song I wanted her to sing, she was just thrilled to be able to sing one of her grandma's songs. Oh, that's sweet. Now, how about original material? What are you churning out these days? I'm writing very slowly. Yeah. You know? Yeah. sweet and that now how about how about original material what are you churning out these days i'm i'm writing very slowly yeah you know yeah and uh trying to get 10 that i really like and hopefully

by the beginning of next year getting another john prine record out there you know i'll tell you man it's like you've had a you've had a rough go of it you know health-wise not recently i have been i've been really lucky with it, too. I'll tell you, it sounds like it was some heavy stuff, man. It was, but at the time, I felt... Well, you got hit with one cancer, right, first? I did, and

it was neck cancer, but it actually turned out the primary was at the base of my tongue. And so it was smaller than the head of a pin. So it took them a long time to get that. Once they did, it didn't spread anymore, but they had to do some radical surgery on my neck in order to get rid of the nodes that had already been affected by it.

And I got a great doctor down in MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. And boy, he said, I'm going to get this, and I'm going to stop it from spreading, and this is what we have to do. And once you find the right doctor, the doctor that you believe in, and you got something like anything related to cancer, that's half of the, you've licked it then.

Sure. Because you can put yourself in their hands yeah i keep telling people that if like if you don't feel intuitively that you're talking to the right person go talk to another one yeah right because they all have different ways they want to do it yeah that's the scary part and he didn't he didn't get your vocal cords or anything no he he didn't know he knew i was a singer but yeah turned out my radiologist yeah he was a fan and he didn't get your vocal cords or anything no he he didn't know he knew i was a singer but yeah turned out my radiologist yeah he was a fan and he wasn't supposed to tell me oh so he actually built a little shield just for my vocal cords when he got the radiation yeah to keep the

vocal cords from getting the hardest part of the the hottest part of the radiation. And when he told me he was doing that, I said, have you ever heard me sing? I said, if I can talk after this, I said, I can sing. You know, it might sound different than I did before, but I said, all I do is say words, and then at the end of the line, I draw it out so people know it's the end of a sentence did he get a laugh out of that yeah he did yeah it turned out he had all my records oh that's great that's great and uh and then you got hit with another one just about five years ago yeah with the they excuse me there was lung But, I mean, they must have caught it within a couple of months of it just starting. Uh-huh.

Only because if you're a previous cancer patient, you get checked out. Right. Like normal people don't. Right. So I would get a chest x-ray every six months for no other reason than. You had cancer. Yeah. Yeah.

And they saw this right away they asked what i wanted to do and i said please go in and cut it out tell me that i don't have cancer no more that's that's what i want you to do right they did they didn't have to follow it up with the radiation or chemo uh-huh it was that fresh it was that that new. No kidding. And I guess unless you go get regular tests, you wouldn't get it that early. Oh, you got lucky. Yeah, I've just been extremely lucky both times with the cancer that I got the right doctors. Yeah, you seem good. I feel good, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So when you come out to Hollywood now, what are you out here for this time? This time is purely stuff I never do. I'm doing interviews because of that record that's coming out. Yeah, and well, I'm looking forward to it. And you hung out with Sturgill the other night. I had a great time. Sturgill's wonderful.

I met him about, I guess it was just about a year ago, and I heard his second record, Matter Modern. Yeah. And I thought, boy, this guy, he's on to something. Right. He's really got it. Whatever it is, he's got it.

Yeah, real deal. And he ended up doing his latest record in the studio that I'm kind of a partner in. Uh-huh. And I'd drop in every once in a while. one day he'd have a steel player in there yeah next day they had these horns r&b horns and then i dropped it a third time he had a moog synthesizer and i thought all right stergel you're doing it yeah he's got a vision yeah yeah yeah mixing it up well there's a whole crew down there that are really sort of like getting back not unlike i think the uh the folk revival there is there is a a sort of true country music revival going on with that guy cobb the guy who uh what's his name

yeah dave cobb that seems to really get like what those george jones records sounded like and what those waylon jennings records sounded like before you know i think country got a little desperate commercially that there was a way of producing country records that was clean but you know specifically country sounding you see you hear that or am i making that up no i do hear it what What Nashville became is it became commercial. Yeah. Really commercial. If they can make money doing that, no matter what they call it, they're going to keep on doing it until it stops making money.

Yeah. But I agree with what you said about this coming along, this wave of songwriters like Jason Isbell. Yeah. Chris Stapleton and that it's all i truly believe in music goes and it goes in circles you know yeah people don't take so much of whatever you call it right and uh they want the real stuff again and it's coming around i'm gonna be 70 this year and so i've seen it happen before it just it takes you just gotta

have patience yeah yeah wait till it comes around again yeah what i do is i'm able to go out anytime and play as much as i want or as little as i want and people come i'm lucky that the people are still out there and oh yeah they want to hear those songs they love you they love you and i and i had it's a real honor to talk to you. And I thank you for coming by. Oh, Mark, thank you. Beautiful. Beautiful man.

Beautiful music. Amazing story. I was beside myself to spend time with that guy. I hope you enjoyed that. You can go to WTFpod.com slash tour to see my upcoming tour dates. All right? I got sweet, man. Boomer lives! Bye.