John Prine (1946–2020) was a Chicago mailman turned songwriter, and his self-titled 1971 debut remains one of the great first albums in American music. He ran his own Oh Boy Records from 1981 on, closing out with The Tree of Forgiveness (2018) — proof he never lost it. Find John Prine vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
John Edward Prine was born in Maywood, Illinois on October 10, 1946. He served in the US Army (stationed in West Germany) before working as a mailman in Chicago while performing in local folk clubs in the late 1960s. He was discovered by Kris Kristofferson and Paul Anka at Chicago's Earl of Old Town and signed with Atlantic Records, releasing his self-titled debut John Prine (1971) - widely considered one of the most important debut albums in American songwriting. He founded Oh Boy Records in 1981 with manager Al Bunetta, becoming one of the first artists to operate his own independent label of substance. He survived two bouts of cancer (1998 squamous cell carcinoma in his neck; 2013 lung cancer) before his death from COVID-19 complications on April 7, 2020 at age 73, becoming one of the most prominent early American casualties of the pandemic. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019. He received the Recording Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.
John Prine's sound combines country folk, folk, Americana, country, and singer-songwriter with his distinctive understated vocal delivery and lyrical content addressing the lives of ordinary people, working-class American experience, war, family, love, and aging with humor and pathos. His foundational influence on American songwriting is widely cited.
Original Atlantic and Oh Boy pressings of the John Prine catalog are widely collected. Multiple anniversary editions, audiophile reissues, and the comprehensive Oh Boy reissue program have been released.
Listeners new to John Prine typically start with John Prine (1971) or The Tree of Forgiveness (2018).
