Ready for Prine Time Players:)

I went into the weekend with a nice reminder that I'm not as old as I sometimes think I am.  A friend from Cornell days, who's a few years older than I am, reminisced about his first visit to campus after being accepted as a student there, 49 4/20s ago (before anybody even called the day that) and three years before I'd make that same trip.  Mine in April 1977 involved a meal in the student union, an overnight in a Gothic style dorm I would never live in, and maybe a class or two.  Mark's in April 1974 involved musical legend:




All of them in one venue. Wow. That's freakin' Folkstock.  Not only did I never see any of these legends ever, I certainly never saw anything like this all at once in Ithaca (or anywhere else) ever. At least a few on that bill will never make my bucket list: David Bromberg announced his retirement after a tour earlier this year, Fairport Convention is down to just one original member, and then there are the small-D dead.  Mimi Farina, Leon Redbone, and Sara Cleveland, who died in 1992 and was already almost 70 at the time of that April 1974 festival. Sara was already immortal in folk circles as the keeper of an upstate family singing tradition that her granddaughter Colleen carries on to this day.

And then there's John Prine. Not "was," though we did lose him to COVID in 2020. His family continues his charitable work, his Grammy-winning albums continue to inspire, and last weekend, for the second April in a row, Buffalo's Americana community came out to Sportsmen's to celebrate his life and music.



My great friend Tyler, who organized the benefit, introducing my also great friend Maria as she started her set.  (I have no idea who the guy photobombing the middle is;)

This small but vital venue sold out in advance, and I got there just as another Tyler (Bagwell) was taking the stage:



Maria was next with her boyfriend Doug, who I complimented after their set for sounding especially Prine-y on a very good night for that-



Many others followed-



- including Alan Whitney, one more fairly new friend from the local folk community who wasn't even on the poster for the event-



Tyler then joined in with Jungle Steve at the end before bringing up first his own band Folkfaces and finally all the remaining musicians for "Lake Marie" and "Angel from Montgomery," two of Prine's best-remembered and most-loved songs.

I didn't quite make it all the way to the end after standing mostly against a wall, and briefly next to an off-duty Maniac*-



- for the better part of three hours. The other oddity of this night for me, though? Well, I'll tell it here like I told it to them on the morning after the event:

The strange thing for me (I know- only one?) about the John Prine Tribute I've now attended two years in a row at Sportsmens?

I know very little of his music- at least not in the way I know tons of Springsteens, every note of Maniacs, hundreds of Whos.  We own exactly one CD of his- The Missing Years, from 1992, which rarely gets tracks played by his followers.
 
That mostly wasn't me singing along with that singalong of World Goes Round I sampled here last night.  I mean, how could you not? I mumbled along with the final line of each chorus because it was just There, but it's not burned into my brain like Rosalita or These Are Days or Love Reign O'er Me are.

So why have two of my last probably dozen ticketed shows been of the music of an artist I don't know?

Because YOU know him and sing him and play him and honor him. and your love of him reigns o'er me like a contact high. Tyler running around that room like a banshee selling posters and collecting for the foundation. Marco the sound guy juggling 17 different sounds and even stepping outside the board to check settings on his tablet. Maria getting a shoutout from the stage just for sitting in the front row. Everybody joining in with everybody and acknowledging everybody and thanking everybody.

Somewhere around Alan's unannounced sit-in with Marty, I realized: even counting back into my far more Methodist days, I have been in more concert venues than houses of worship in the past several years. A lot more. This is now what religion once was for me, and it hasn't been co-opted contrary to first principles like mine and many others have been. Caring, kindness, doing unto others, fellowship. This, I can still believe.

As for the Gospel according to Prine, I am studying via Prime.  As I set down these words, the sound and lyrics of "Hello In There" are coming from my phone, the third track on his first album among the many that have been there all along for me to listen to and learn.  By the time of the third annual tribute, I will know more, will probably ruin your evening by singing along more, but I can't imagine feeling any more love in that room than I did, however cluelessly, last night.

And dammit, next time I WILL make it to Angel from Montgomery at the end❤️

Many of Prine's albums are indeed on Prime Music, and I've listened through two of them already, with lyrics displayed to learn, in my work and travels of the past three days.  More will follow. The event raised close to $1,000 for the Prine family's foundation, and raised a club full of spirits, including, most definitely, mine:)

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* The Maniac in question is founding member John Lombardo. I was wearing my concert T-shirt from That Weekend last year and he introduced himself. There's more of a story I will share another time about that.