John Prine, revered singer-songwriter, dies of COVID-19 complications at 73

John Prine, who traded his job as a Chicago mail carrier to become one of the most revered singer-songwriters of the last half-century, died on Tuesday of COVID-19 complications, after surviving multiple bouts with cancer. “Since the rise of Kris Kristofferson, there must have been 150 albums by new artists in roughly the same folk/country tradition,” Los Angeles Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn wrote upon that album’s release almost 50 years ago, “but I don’t recall any of them being as exciting as the debut album from 25-year-old John Prine.” The album earned him a Grammy nomination for best new artist at the 1973 ceremony. With cowriter Bobby Braddock, he penned “Unwed Fathers” in 1984, a song that upbraided men who abandoned girlfriends for unplanned pregnancies, while the women suffered societal judgment: “From a teenage lover to an unwed mother / Kept undercover some bad dream / While unwed fathers, they can’t be bothered / They run like water, through a mountain stream.” A hit recording of that song by country queen Tammy Wynette was one of the high points of his career, Prine said. On the debut album, during the height of protests over the Vietnam War, he recorded “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore”: “But your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore / They’re already overcrowded from your dirty little war / Now Jesus don’t like killing, no matter what the reason’s for / And your flag decal won’t get you into Heaven anymore.” When he was first diagnosed with cancer in 1998, his friendship with famed early rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Sam Phillips played an important role in his treatment. “He said, ‘If you don’t go down to Houston, Texas, John Prine, I will come to Nashville, Tennessee, and kick your ass every mile of the way,’” Prine told Phillips biographer Peter Guralnick.