Happy Birthday!

John as I always envision him

 John would have been 80 today and meant so much to me that I thought I would write a bit about him for a special post.

I first heard John before I met him. My dad, a hard working farmer who rarely spent time indoors when I was awake, would often play John's record on a rainy day when farming wasn't feasible or perhaps a Sunday when we were taking the day off. Thus it is no surprise that when I play record, now in digitized form, I do so most often on those rainy days or as a bonus, rainy Sunday afternoons. Hearing his raspy voice has always soothed my soul and brought me a bit of peace.

I always thought of John as sort of a private family thing. I had never met anyone in my life growing up that knew of him. That changed on one vacation when I was looking through our host family's CD collection and found an album of John's that I had never heard. I asked if I could play it and they agreed, even singing along to some of the songs and sort of incredulous that I had never heard them. I was incredulous that not only did they know John's music but hadn't heard some of the songs I knew. Later on post college, I ran into a fellow at a group gathering wearing one of John's concert t-shirts and we spent the entire evening spouting out lyrics and laughing like it was an inside joke and it sort of was since none of our other mutual friends knew who we were talking about. As I started accumulating a few spare dollars with my first job post college, some of my first purchases were buying every single album of John's music, a sizeable investment.

I met John sometime during my college years when I heard he was going to play at an auditorium not too far away. At that time, I hadn't developed my fondness for John's music but I thought it would be a great gift idea for my dad who is hard to buy gifts for. I bought a couple CD's of John's latest anthology album and after doing a bit of research, headed down to listen to the concert. I was the youngest person in the auditorium by many decades but I didn't mind. I happily listened and sang through the lengthy set, realizing, I knew more of his songs than I had known. After the encore, people got up and left but I had read that if you hang behind, John would often meet with any fans and so I stayed seated...until the usher told me I had to move. I told the usher what I had heard about meeting John after the concert and he just pointed to a door on stage left and said to go in there. I did and found myself in a hallway where another person asked if I was there to see John. I nodded and he opened the door to usher me into John's dressing room.

John was seated on a couch with a cigarette and a half finished beer in his hand but he stood up, shook my hand and asked me some question which I bumbled my way through an answer, in shock to be this close to someone my father admired so much. I pulled out the two CD's and asked if John would kindly sign one to me and one to my father. He gladly did and after a few words spoken between us, I found myself back out in the deserted auditorium and making my way back to my car. I have never been so excited to give my father a gift for his birthday that year. It also was likely the gift that got "used" the most of all that I have given before or after. I have long ago tossed all my CD jewel cases and artwork and instead have the CD's organized in a couple of large shoe boxes on a shelf in our basement. But I kept the signed cover that John did for me and later the one he did for my father.

As the years went by, I was able to see John several more times and each time as memorable as the first. His concerts were always small affairs in auditoriums that were sometimes half full. Always it felt like sort of a private show between John and the others in the "room". John has a way of always connecting with his audience. 

The last time I saw him, was at another concert which I had bought three tickets for and gave two of them to my parents for a Christmas gift. As much as John meant to my father and as many times as I had seen my parents dance to some of his music in our living room, neither of them had ever been to a concert of his. At the time, John was recently recovered from his second cancer of the neck ordeal and his voice was very gravely but he still put on a great concert. My mom was recently recovered from a surgery of her brain to remove cancer and would die the following year so it was really the last time we got to have a family experience with John. 

Covid hit hard in March of 2020 and with my wife being a doctor on the front lines, we made the decision to spend our evenings apart for awhile. I moved into the guest Murphy bed on the back wall of the office and spent many a evening listening to concerts on YouTube. Many, including another group I follow, were putting on free online concerts to pass the time. It was on April 7th, while listening to free concert the artist played one of John's songs and dedicated it to him because he had just died. I had heard John had been in a hospital for over a week on a ventilator with Covid but still I felt as if someone had punched me in the gut. I stopped listening after he finished John's song and spent the rest of the evening listening to John's songs and concerts and just letting the tears flow. 

John Prine died at the age of 73 so had by most measures, lived a full life. He produced his last album before his death after a 13 year absence from creating music so although he still did shows, he was slowing down making music. But I still sometimes wonder what more he could have produced if he had been given a few more years. However, I think he went out in a proper manner because the last song on that last album was entitled, "When I Get to Heaven".

Happy 80th Heavenly Birthday John!

Photo taken by me at the last Prine concert I went to with my parents