I've said it before, I wouldn't want to turn the blog into a series of obituaries, but I had been thinking about presenting this album anyway when news came that John Prine had died at 73, from complications related to a COVID-19 infection. Hopefully the virus will not rob us of any more great musicians and songwriters, but with such erratic world leaders as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson I'm afraid that's just wishful thinking.
Prine has never been a commercial artist, but he's considered by connoisseurs an expert songwriter and storyteller, given accolades ranging from the all-too-banal "new Bod Dylan" to the most flattering "Mark Twain of songwriting", a reference to the warmth, humor and astuteness of his observations of everyday life in America. He was also a firm opponent to the Vietnam war - although he had safely served at the U.S. bases in Germany, he witnessed too many friends return from Vietnam mentally and physically damaged to stay silent, and he put their plight into song. Pink Cadillac isn't among his best records; in fact Rolling Stone magazine called it at the time "an almost unqualified disaster". I added it nevertheless to my collection for two reasons: firstly, it has the reputation of being his most rocking record; secondly in an interview of his that I read in Uncut, he defended it more than any other of his albums, and said that its bad reception and lack of promotion by his label prompted him to forswear major labels and establish his own indie company. Apparently his object was to get rid of the studio sheen and make a raw, live-sounding, record as a tribute to the early days of rock'n'roll - and what better place to do that than Memphis' Sun Studios, where Elvis, Jerry Lee, and others started the career? The album was produced by Sam Phillips' sons Knox and Jerry, while the old man himself came out of retirement to produce two tracks: the acoustic country ballad "How Lucky" and rocker "Saigon" (about a PTSD-ridden Vietnam vet). In the latter, Philips deliberately overloaded and blew up the guitar amp, giving it a noisy, fuzzed-out, sound.
Opener "Chinatown" is a rootsy rocker with loud guitars that reminds me of latter-day Dylan, mostly because of the nasal vocal. "Automobile" is a worthy successor to the classic rockabilly cut in the Sun studio, with great guitar and harmonica. "Down By The Side Of The Road" could easily have come out of Dylan's contemporary LP Street Legal, judging from the instrumentation and style, right up to the female backing vocals. The rest of the songs are all covers. Three of them are rockabilly classics: "Ubangi Stomp", "Baby Let's Play House" and "No Name Girl" - the latter is a duet with Billy Lee Riley who co-wrote the song with "Cowboy" Jack Clement, and has a nice Bo Diddley beat. Lastly, there are a couple of country ballads: Roly Salley's "Killing The Blues" has some R&B elements (Hammond organ, sax, and female backing vocals), while Floyd Tillman's "Cold War (This Cold War With You)" is straight-up honky-tonk material. The covers didn't go down well with critics but, maybe because I like old-timey rockabilly or because I don't necessarily expect literature from rock and country records, I don't see why they dis this LP. I guess that Prine isn't in his best vocal form - writing like Dylan is an admirable quality, sounding like him much less so. Nevertheless there's a spontaneous, fun, vibe about the album that I like. Too bad that the man who beat cancer twice was defeated by what many still think of a "kind of flu". Well, the guy had his own ideas for the afterlife: "When I Get To Heaven...I'm Gonna Have A Cocktail/ Vodka And Ginger/ And I'm Gonna Smoke A Cigarette/ That's Nine Miles Long" he sang in his last record. Sounds like The Plan, John! R.I.P.
**** for Automobile, Killing The Blue, No Name Girl, Saigon, Down By The Side Of The Road, How Lucky
*** for Chinatown, Cold War (This Cold War With You), Baby Let's Play House, Ubangi Stomp
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