John Prine Live

Since releasing his first album in 1971, John Prine had recorded with various sets of musicians in Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, and Nashville. He'd played rock and blues and country. And yet there was still something spectacular about hearing him play the way he started out: alone onstage with a guitar. That’s how he's captured on John Prine Live, which documents the singer/songwriter’s March 1988 appearance at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. It’s impossible to say that Prine sounds older here than he did on his canonical early recordings; Kris Kristofferson once said "he writes like he’s about 220” of the 24-year-old Prine. But here you're rewarded with the wizened affection that an older songwriter shows for his life’s work. Even when the crowd decides to sing along to “Illegal Smile,” the effect is not of intrusion but communion—an old story shared among friends. Prine loved to get rambunctious on his early albums, in part to dispel folk-singer stereotypes. But when he's alone with his guitar, it's impossible for him to hide his tenderness or his wit or his wonderfully worn-in voice.