SPOTLIGHT: John Prine, Blue-Collar Bard

This week in Subscribers Only, MixedTapes highlights a special artist worthy of attention.

John Prine was a quiet giant in American music. Musically, his sound occupied a nexus of Country and American Folk, with a smattering of rockabilly. Lyrically, he was harder to pin down.

A true blue-collar bard, Prine was a teller of slyly simple stories about everyday life and love, the elderly, loneliness, victims of war and the people that the American Dream let down. Heavy topics often, but rarely absent was his signature humor and wit. Bonnie Raitt, who covered Prine's "Angel From Montgomery" compared him to Mark Twain for his tenderness, wisdom and "homespun sense of humor." Bob Dylan said Prine's "beautiful songs...are pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree."