John Prine (album)
| John Prine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by John Prine | ||||
| Released | 1971 | |||
| Recorded | American Sound Studio, Memphis, except "Paradise," recorded at A & R Studios, New York City | |||
| Genre | Folk | |||
| Length | 44:07 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Producer | Arif Mardin | |||
| John Prine chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
 |
| Robert Christgau | (A) |
| Rolling Stone | (favorable) |
John Prine is the first album by American country/folk singer-songwriter John Prine, issued by Atlantic Records in 1971. In 2003, the album was ranked number 452 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Prine was offered a recording contract by Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records after the record executive saw the singer perform several of his own songs at a Kris Kristofferson show at the Bitter End. The song "Paradise" was recorded at A&R Studios in New York (with Prine's brother Dave and good friend Steve Goodman as sidemen) but the remaining cuts were recorded at American Sound Studios in Memphis. Produced by Arif Mardin, who had previously collaborated with the likes of Aretha Franklin and King Curtis, Prine found his new studio surroundings intimidating. In the Great Days: The John Prine Anthology liner notes he admits, "I was terrified. I went straight from playing by myself, still learning how to sing, to playing with Elvis Presley's rhythm section."
John Prine features some of Prine's most heralded compositions, including "Sam Stone", "Paradise" and "Hello In There".
"Sam Stone", a song about a drug-addicted veteran with a Purple Heart and his death by overdose, was originally titled "Great Society Conflict Veteran's Blues". The most familiar refrain in the song is "There's a hole in daddy's arm, where all the money goes." The song is usually interpreted as a reference to the phenomenon of heroin or morphine addiction among Vietnam War veterans (an identical surge of addiction followed the Civil War, where morphine addiction was known as 'Soldiers Disease'). The song does not mention the Vietnam War, saying only that Sam returned from "serving in the conflict overseas." There is a single explicit reference to morphine but Prine alludes to heroin on several occasions including the use of the term "habit," slang commonly associated with heroin use, and the line "he popped his last balloon," very likely referring to one of the ways in which street heroin is commonly packaged - in small rubber balloons.
...
Wikipedia