There are many musicians whose deaths have floored me, but when John Prine died of Covid-19 in April 2020 I was inconsolable. It felt like a great injustice. Prine had cheated death twice before, having been diagnosed with cancer of the neck in 1997 and lung cancer in 2013; the former altering his voice and appearance dramatically.

I’d always appreciated how grateful he seemed in interviews for the small things in life that brought him pleasure – hot dogs, Christmas trees, comic books – and how he managed to balance that frivolity with the most heartbreaking subject matter in his songwriting. I felt like I’d lost a mentor, and judging by the outpouring of grief I found online after his death, I wasn’t alone.

Prine was a country and Americana singer/songwriter, formerly a mailman who

See Full Page