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Review

Prine offers humble packaging, great performance

By LOUIS HAU
Published December 16, 2005

CLEARWATER - About 40 minutes into his concert Thursday night at Ruth Eckerd Hall, John Prine decided to give his audience a useful tip.

"This is a good song to keep in an emergency," he said.

The emergency he had in mind? Being asked to sing a song at your ex-wife's wedding.

"It doesn't hurt to be prepared," he said with a grin, launching into his bittersweet All The Best.

"I wish you don't do like I do and ever fall in love with someone like you," Prine sang, twisting the knife by adding that, "Kids don't know, they can only guess, how hard it is to wish you happiness."

Back in the 1970s, it seemed as though just about any guy with a guitar and a gift for social commentary or witty wordplay got pegged as a "New Dylan."

Bruce Springsteen, John Prine, Loudon Wainwright III and Steve Forbert were among the most prominent performers to get saddled with this flattering but onerous handle.

Of the four, Prine alone failed to crack Top 40 radio, which wasn't really surprising.

After all, the Illinois native made an exceedingly modest first impression, with his scruffy looks, merely adequate guitar picking and welcoming but unremarkable yowl of a voice.

But the humble packaging has always been part of Prine's genius as a performer, for it focuses his audience's attention where it belongs - on his remarkable catalog of songs.

He'll sing about heartbreaking loneliness. He'll sing about the joy, pain and absurdity of being in love. And sometimes he'll sing about, well, nothing in particular, as if he's sitting back in bemusement watching the big old goofy world go through its gyrations.

Whatever the theme, Prine invests his compositions with a keen sense of humanity, always attuned to the little foibles that make us who we are.

Prine's gifts were on beautiful display Thursday night.

Following a brief set of lovely, literate folk music by opener R.B. Morris and an intervening intermission, Prine, guitarist Jason Wiber and bassist Dave Jacques kicked off the evening with a galloping rendition of Spanish Pipedream from his eponymously titled 1971 debut album. As soon as they finished, some members of the enthusiastic audience of 1,525 jumped to their feet to give him a standing ovation.

Prine's early work often reflected a wisdom far beyond his years, something that pays rich dividends for the now-59-year-old songwriter.

On Thursday, his classic Hello In There sounded more affecting than ever.

"You know that old trees just get stronger," he sang. "Old rivers grow wilder everyday. Old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say hello in there."

Prine made it clear that he's aware of how much time has passed since he first came up. Proudly noting that his 2005 album Fair & Square was nominated last week for a Grammy Award, he recalled that the first Grammy nomination he received was in 1972.

"My competition was the Lone Ranger and the Eagles," he joked. "Now it's 50 Cent."

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 00:54:19]