Celebrating the late, great musician John Prine in the new book ‘Prine on Prine’

There is no question that had movie critic Roger Ebert not walked into the Fifth Peg club one night in 1970 and heard an unknown singer/songwriter named John Prine, that Prine still would have found his deserved fame and admiration.

But it was Ebert who gave the young mail carrier from Maywood his first blast of public recognition. Among the words Ebert wrote in the Sun-Times were these: “(Prine) appears on stage with such modesty he almost seems to be backing into the spotlight. He sings rather quietly, and his guitar work is good, but he doesn’t show off. He starts slow. But after a song or two, even the drunks in the room begin to listen to his lyrics. And then he has you.”

It’s a wonderful review, done in Ebert’s distinctively smooth style and with his keen observations and comments. It makes great reading and it is the first of more than four dozen great things to read (devour actually) in a marvelous new book, “Prine on Prine: Interviews and Encounters with John Prine.”

This is the latest in Chicago Review Press’ “Musicians in Their Own Words” series, an estimable effort that has captured such talents as Tom Waits, David Bowie, George Harrison, Dolly Parton, Neil Young, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell and others.

Editor Holly Gleason tells me she first heard Prine when she was a 12-year-old in Cleveland. She writes about eventually meeting him when she was a 20-year-old living in Florida and writing music reviews. She interviewed Prine for a story that was never printed. But as she went on to become a veteran of the music journalism scene and author of books, she maintained a close relationship with Prine and his colleague and friend Dan Einstein, to whom she was once long ago engaged and who did not live to see this book completed.

Her feelings for Prine are apparent throughout, in her own writing and in the selections she has made. She knew him with an affection that flirts with idolatry, but why not? It seems that everyone liked Prine and/or his music. Even Bob Dylan, never one to toss off frivolous admiration for others, once said, “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs.”

So, there is lots of praise on these pages and Gleason is right when she writes in the introduction that Prine “hated talking about himself, hated taking apart his songs … putting the attention on him made him feel awkward, even a little strange.”

Prine died in 2020, sparking memories for those of us of a certain age, back to nights at the Fifth Peg or Earl of Old Town stages where Prine would say, “I’m John Prine and these are some songs I wrote,” becoming part of a glorious folk-star roster that also included such grand talents as Bonnie Koloc, Steve Goodman, the brothers Ed and Fred Holstein, and memorable others. As Ebert wrote, “Prine’s lyrics work with poetic economy to sketch a character in just a few words.”

There is no music in this book. In this book you get the man, in all his charming, introspective, self-deprecating and inspiring facets. It can serve as a biography, with the details of signposts and bumps on Prine’s road to fame.

In addition to Ebert’s now legendary first review, Chicago is well represented. There’s part of a 1975 radio interview by Studs Terkel, who calls Prine on air “about the most imaginative and moving of American songwriters and singers today.” There are three fine pieces by former Sun-Times writer and filmmaker Dave Hoekstra, one of which has him sharing chicken wings and talking screenplays with Prine after the singer had moved to Nashville.

Chicago’s Lloyd Sachs writes thoughtfully in a 2005 story focused on Prine’s first successful battle with cancer in 1998. There are many other delights, such as the 1973 interview by Cameron Crowe, who would go on to have an Oscar-winning film career with “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982), “Jerry Maguire” (1996) and “Almost Famous” (2000).

Crowe was just a teenager in 1973 and as such was accompanied on interviews by his older sister. As he recalls in this book, some decades later he encountered Prine at the Grammy Awards and reintroduced himself. He writes:

“I thanked him for our (long ago) interview, which I told him he probably wouldn’t even remember.

“‘Of course I do,’ he said. ‘Your sister was there too … Tell her I said hi.’”

Actor Billy Bob Thornton shows up in the book and so does esteemed critic Robert Hilburn. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser makes an appearance.

Inevitably there is some overlap but one comes away from these 340-some pages entertained and enlightened and certainly eager to hear again such Prine songs as “Sam Stone,” “Hello in There,” “Lake Marie,” “Angel From Montgomery.” There’s plenty of listening awaiting.

Mike Leonard knows that music. A child of the northern suburbs where he still lives, he was for decades a compelling correspondent for the “Today” show.

He makes two appearances in the book, “Today” segments from 1986 (in Nashville) and 1991 (mostly on a tour bus). These made me remember a 30-minute documentary he and his business partner Mary Kay Wall made about Prine in 2016. About that Leonard told me “[Prine writes] songs that endure just as he has endured, the resilient artist soldiering on, his timeworn voice and scarred body emblematic of the human frailty that is so often the hallmark of his lyrical storylines.”

Off camera, Leonard asked Prine if he ever tired of singing and playing what are essentially the same songs for 45 years. Prine said, “The songs continue to grow.”

You will understand what he meant, and a whole lot more, when you read this fine book.

rkogan@chicagotribune.com