John Prine was a mailman in a small Illinois town. When he was 14 years old, his brother David had taught him to play the guitar. Some nights when he got off of work, he would mosey on down to the Fifth Peg, a local watering hole.
There he watched open mic night. One night after a less-than-entertaining performance, he made a negative comment to the person on stage, to which the performer responded, "You think you can do better?"
I guess he did because he started performing on the stage there at Fifth Peg on Armitage Avenue in Maywood, Illinois, outside of Chicago.
One night, Chicago Sun Times movie critic, Roger Ebert, was watching a movie in a nearby theater. His popcorn was too salty so he got up and walked out. He stopped in the Fifth Peg to grab a beer on his way home and heard this young mailman on stage.
The next day, instead of writing about the movie that he saw the night before, the headline read, "Singing Mailman Delivers The Message." Ebert went on to say that Prine's songs were like little movies and were a lot more interesting than what was showing at the theaters.
That was in the 60's.
John recently released a live recording called "In Person and On Stage". The first track is called "Spanish Pipedream".
No comments:
Post a Comment