John Prine (1946-2020)
Soundstage was an excellent live-music show that originally aired on WTTW Chicago from the mid-70′s to the mid-80′s. This John Prine episode was one of my two favorites. (The other being Arlo Guthrie, Steve Goodman and Hoyt Axton.) I remember being fascinated with it when it aired in 1980. It is an outstanding performance by Prine that captures the beauty of his songs and his humorous banter between songs. The highlight for me is Paradise, a song about Kentucky and the Peabody Coal Mining Company (a company my coal miner grandfather worked for in south-central Illinois). I have a friend, Steve, who was my roommate at SIU in Carbondale, IL. We have not seen a lot of each other since college, but when we do get together, we play some music, mostly Country and Blue Grass. With Steve on fiddle and me on acoustic guitar, Paradise is always my favorite song that we do. (Paradise begins at 28:00.)