Hillside Inside 2021
We lost one of the best singer-songwriters on April 7, 2020. John Prine died at the age of 73 from complications related to COVID-19. He was the poet of the overlooked and underappreciated, ordinary people whose stories he told with compassion and wry humour, and a songwriter whose evocative work seemed to magically tap into the zeitgeist of the times. Rolling Stone credits Prine with “chang[ing] the face of modern American roots music,” noting that he “combined literary genius with a common touch” that would influence generation after generation of songwriters. Bob Dylan said in 2009 that “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism.” In this series for Hillside Inside, we offer some Prine favourites as sung by artists whose imaginations were shaped or inspired by the songwriter’s work.
Click on names below to find out more about the artists and to view videos during the Hillside Inside weekend.