I’ll admit it: the first time I heard John Prine’s voice was only two years ago. It was a glorious Sunday afternoon in late May, and I was pulling out of the driveway of a barbecue joint in Virginia. I’d eaten so well: fantastic pulled pork with mustard sauce, and brisket cooked in massive outdoor ovens. The blessed sun had poured down on me while I pulled on a beer.
I was on that high you get when you’re just starting out on a trip that you’ve looked forward to: nothing but anticipation and open road in your future. My wife and I were headed away for two nights for my birthday.
It was as if old John had written “Knocking On Your Screen Door” with Alison and I in mind: with this very moment in fact. Everything about the opening tune on John’s latest album was suited for the moment you finish your first meal on a road trip that is a much-needed break from the toil and trouble of every day life. (That first meal always seems to be the most memorable.)
“I’m knocking on your screen door in the summertime,” John crooned in that gravelly late-life voice of his. I would come to discover that this was quite different from the more nasal delivery of his earlier years, up until he fought off cancer in his neck in 1998 and then lung cancer in 2013. The main guitar rhythm was both steady and happy-go-lucky, the guitar solo in the middle of the…
