John Prine wrote country-folk songs with an unpretentious, aw-heck demeanor that belied their astonishing gravity and power. “He sings rather quietly, and his guitar work is good, but he doesn’t show off,” Roger Ebert wrote of an early Prine show in 1970. “After a song or two, even the drunks in the room begin to listen to his lyrics.
And then he has you.” That night’s setlist at the Fifth Peg in Chicago included “Spanish Pipedream,” “Angel From Montgomery” and “Sam Stone” -- three of Prine's most cherished songs, which he would perform for the rest of his life.
About his new fanbase in his third act, “It took some of ‘em 45 years to get the joke!” Prine cracked to CBS News in 2018. "And some people are getting it now.