The last days and beautiful life of John Prine
At the show, on February 13th, Prine was in serious pain from what he later learned was a collapsed hip. He was forced to sit in a chair onstage, something he never did. But he delivered,
After the Paris show, Prine celebrated with a French cheese platter . His hip pain was so bad that he decided to cancel the rest of the tour, but before returning home, he and Fiona hung out in Paris for a few more days. They ordered room service every day, drank expensive wine, and watched movies like. “I went out shopping on the last day we were there, and I bought him a whole bunch of gifts,” she says.
The outpouring of love and grief around the world was huge and effusive. His songs were streamed 20 million times in two days. Prine said his grades were “too ugly” for college. After graduating high school in 1964, he took the advice of his oldest brother, Dave, and became a mailman. The pay was good, and so were the benefits. That life was upended when Prine was drafted into the Army in late 1966, just as the Vietnam War was heating up. But instead of being sent to Vietnam, he ended up in Stuttgart, West Germany, where he worked as a mechanical engineer.
Raitt remembers first hearing “Angel From Montgomery,” about a married woman who felt old before her time. “The fact this very young man could inhabit this middle-aged woman,” she says, “and make it so real and so cinematic, it just touched me so deeply.” Raitt recorded the song in 1974, and it became one of her biggest hits.
Prine moved to the city soon after, and his house became a popular stop for Nashville musicians after they were done playing the bars. “Back in the day, John would pull a turkey out of the oven between 12:30 and one in the morning with all the fixings — mashed potatoes and all the gravy,” his co-writer and former guitarist Pat McLaughlin said last year. “Not a lot of green vegetables because he didn’t care about green vegetables. He’d just kill time around Nashville, but he was always working.
Fiona and her son Jody soon moved to Nashville. At 48, Prine had been married twice. “I was a high risk,” he said. But he jumped into family life. Fiona gave birth to their son, Jack, in 1994, and Tommy the following year. Jody was about 12 when he came to America, and he quickly had to learn to adjust to life with a songwriting legend as his father figure. “I think he played the Ryman when I was in high school — it was like, ‘Oh that’s cool,’” Jody says.
Onstage, Prine was a gregarious storyteller, but in private he was quieter, more reflective. “You weren’t always sure he was listening at first,” says Jody. “But that was because he actually did. He wouldn’t respond right away. You’d say something, and he would wait a few beats. And you would think, ‘Do I need to repeat?’ He would be considering stuff.”
In 2015, Prine’s manager Al Bunetta died. They had been best friends for decades, and Prine thought about retiring. He had just been through his second battle with cancer, having a portion of his lung removed in 2013. But he told his family he would keep going if they stepped in to take over his business. “I was like, ‘Well, OK, I don’t know anything about that, but as long as you keep your expectations low,’” Jody says, laughing.
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