Star rating: ****
He is, by his own admission, still learning to play the guitar. It's a state of affairs that his, shall we say, enthusiastic stroking of an electric guitar during a mercifully brief let's-be-a-bar band interlude would confirm. John Prine has never been about musical sophistication, though.
Prine's great talent lies in communicating wisdom and his responses to things that affect us all in a way that registers, lyrically and melodically, with the man and woman in the street. He says the simple things brilliantly and memorably, as the almost serial instances of audience singalongs bore out here.
Of course, his songs' longevity aren't hindered by history repeating itself. There are characters in Prine's domestic dramas who were involved in the Korean war and Vietnam, and who knows how many soldiers who weren't even born when Prine wrote of Sam Stone's post-combat stress and addiction will go through the same hell?
Prine conveys this as well as reminders that patriotism doesn't guarantee entry to heaven, observations on career mobility and reflections on true love with a canny mixture of humanity and humour in a voice that reeks of honesty.
With his familiar guitar/mandolin and bass team adding punch, flair and rockabilly-country-blues detail, he rattles through a catalogue whose consistency is remarkable. As good as the trio sounds, though, with the aforementioned exception, it's the Prine and guitar alone sequence that perhaps stands out. It's not an image that'll please everyone but the idea of a teenage Jesus sharing the bill with Tammy Wynette and George Jones during the grand tour that the Bible omitted still tickles your reviewer every time.
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