How did I get to be this old, playing music, listening to music, and never hear of John Prine? I don’t want you to make the same mistake, so if his name is unfamiliar to you, and you like eclectic folksy-alternative-country-rootsy-blues sort of music, I suggest you listen to last week’s American Routes interview with John Prine. (You may need to look it up in their archives if this post is no longer current.) Even if you don’t particularly like that genre but you just like good songwriting, I think this is well worth the listen.

You may have heard Bonnie Raitt sing his song “Angel From Montgomery”, with one of my favorite lines  – “How the hell can a person go to work in the morning and come home in the evening and have nothing to say?” That was the only familiar song to me, but I heard plenty worth hearing again, including “Hello in There” and “Some Humans Ain’t Human.”

American Routes, by the way, is great fun whoever they play. Here in my town, it airs Saturday nights on public radio, after Prairie Home Companion. Yeah, guess who has small children and doesn’t usually get out on Saturday nights? But that’s okay. I’m homeschooling myself in classic American music while washing the dishes. I’m writing a song about that too, but that’s another story.