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| Pitchfork |
 A veteran of the Chicago folk scene of the late 1960s and early 70s, John Prine ought to be more difficult to cover. He writes for his own voice, an instrument with a uniquely warm wryness and a limited range, which means his melodies are homey and modest, as if he's making them up on the spot. More crucially, his songs-- crammed with stray details and wonderfully skewed insights-- are strongly tied to his part huckster, part good ol' boy personality. Prine's a songwriter's songwriter, which means that the very traits that ought to make him hard to cover only make covering him an attractive notion. Many have pulled it off, too: George Strait, 10,000 Maniacs, Fairport Convention, and Johnny Cash.Even so, an album of Prine covers is a dodgy proposition. It's bound to be erratic; tribute albums are by nature inconsistent, and the particulars of Prine's songwriting make it likely that just as many people will stagger as will step lively. By focusing on several insightful interpretations and by spotlighting some of Prine's lesser-known tracks, however, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows actually has some surprisingly high highs and some lows that are as forgivable as they are inevitable. No one covers "Sam Stone", thankfully, nor "Hello in There", "Paradise", or his biggest single, "Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard". Of course, someone's going to tackle "Angel From Montgomery", an aching, oft-covered tune that is one of Prine's most popular. Old Crow Medicine Show make it sound pretty rote, with singer Ketch Secor even mimicking Prine's distinctive cadence. They sound a bit overwhelmed. For the most part, these are fan choices, revealing the less-explored depths of the tributee's catalog and reveling in the often contradictory aspects of his songwriting. Few of the artists, however, can actually capture that hardened ambiguity, that sense of laughing while crying. Recasting one of Prine's more boisterous songs as a quiet solo folk rumination, Josh Ritter savors the details of "Mexican Home", singing "Take the fan from the window/ Prop the door back with a broom" like he wished he'd written that line. But he sounds overserious, which makes the composition seem a bit stuff. Likewise, Sara Watkins has a perfectly lovely voice for the melody of "The Late John Garfield Blues", but she misses the song's gruff self-deprecation. Even though Prine wrote it in his mid-twenties, it's a song for and by a middle-age man....full text |
| Jambands |
| Inundated on all sides by fourth generation bands seeking to exist for six months or beyond, one occasionally feels the urge to get back to the source material, too. Over the course of a four-decade career, John Prine’s songs have helped form the roots of many excellent singer-songwriters in the awesome shadow of the Dylan wave of the ’60s. Prine was wise enough to stay true to his own muse, in turn crafting an impressive body of work featuring clever and imagery-filled lyrics wrapped around some killer hooks. What is interesting about the new John Prine live album, In Person & On Stage isn’t just the onslaught of quality, classic tunes filled with witty asides, tall and lean tales, and words of existential wisdom (there’s 14 rueful and robust troubadour observations here). Nor the performances by stellar guest musicians (Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement, Sara Watkins, Josh Ritter, and Kane Welch Kaplin), who accompany the excellent Prine on vocals and guitar as well as a core band featuring Jason Wilber on lead guitar, mandolin, and background vocals, and Dave Jacques on upright and electric bass, and background vocals). Nor even the almost epic feeling that one is traveling through the life of another, in a weird bit of ravaged metempsychosis, but that Prine’s tunes still sound so relevant in 2010....full text |
| Bidbux |
| Today’s avant-roots renaissance owes a great debt to John Prine’s laconic, ever-questioning poetic quality. Featuring 12 newly-recorded versions of classic Prine songs, “Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine” boasts an enviable roll call of inventive musicians, including My Morning Jacket, The Avett Brothers, Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, and more. That Prine’s perspective flourishes so vividly in these modern recastings is testament to not only the sheer power of his songs, but to the subtly defiant undercurrent that runs throughout his music...full text |
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