PRINE ON PRINE: Interviews & Encounters has arrived! After hitting #1 on the New Releases, Country + Folk Biography Amazon list, the Musicians in Their Own Words volume dedicated to the Grammy and Songwriting Hall of Fame inductee has been striking a chord across America. Beyond the initial wave of media, including three full pages, including the cover of the Tennessean’s Features section, the collection of newspaper and magazine features, TV appearances, award presentations, film scripts, recipes and an evening at the Library of Congress is attracting music lovers of all ages.
With the official kick-off week culminating with a conversation with Steve Earle and signing at the iconic Strand Books on Broadway at 12th, editor Holly Gleason and the Texas expat treated the packed room to memories of the beloved songwriter, insights into his time in Nashville and thoughts on why Prine’s music made such an enduring impact on generations of young artists and songwriters. For Earle, who counts Prine just behind Bob Dylan and parallel to Bruce Springsteen, it was an opportunity to also witness the Chicago-born, Kentucky-rooted, Nashville-based legend’s support during difficult times, his playwriting and theater company and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass encounters over the years, as well as Earle’s longstanding relationship with LA Press Club’s Southern California Media Awards Entertainment Journalist of the Year.
“Steve, like John, was there when I was a baby rock critic,” Gleason said of her cohost. “I wrote the first national piece on Guitar Town, covered him for Rolling Stone, MIX and even a cover for Country Song Round Up. John thought so much of Steve’s writing, and Steve held John in such esteem, he was the perfect person to start this book’s journey with! He understands the world Oh Boy Records was born into.”
Earle and Gleason’s conversation continues this weekend, where Gleason is the sole guest on SiriusXM Outlaw Country’s “Hardcore Troubadour Show.” Laughing about mutual friends, moments that stood out from a time when Nashville was a creative intersection point and being real about the impact Prine’s work had on each of them, it moves through all the feels.
With “CBS Prime Time Live with John Dickerson” being fed out to the CBS News Morning News affiliates, the conversation about who Prine was, what Gleason intended for book and how much he treasured life reached even more people than in its original airing. Watch HERE.
John Prine has come to be revered as Americana’s premiere songwriter/artist. With a strong empathy for the human condition, the Chicago-born and -raised daydreamer went on to become a voice who spoke for the unseen and an artist who gave gravitas to those society didn’t bother with. PRINE ON PRINE: Interviews & Encounters traces the man whose songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, George Strait, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, Bettye LaVette, Miranda Lambert, Carly Simon, Susan Tedeschi, Johnny Cash and more across his five decade career was a labor of love for Gleason.
On the heels of Americana Highways, Salvation South, Inside Hook, Chapter 16, HeadButler.com and three full pages in Nashville’s Tennessean, award-winning novelist Silas House (Lark Ascending, Southernmost) did a deep dive Q+A with Gleason that arrived today via Garden & Gun. As a Kentucky-born and -bred writer, House has a special understanding of Prine’s love for the region, and it shows in his piece. Read HERE.
“John never stopped thinking of himself – or especially his parents and their families – as being from Kentucky, that’s what makes songs like ‘Paradise’ so potent. He captured the heart of the people, the innocence of the region with such sweetness without being Hallmark, so talking to Silas was a gift. Indeed, talking to everyone is bringing John and co-manager Dan Einstein back to me. So many memories, so much life are contained in the book and the conversations.”
Having created, edited and contributed to Woman, Walk The Line, the 2018 Belmont Book Award winning collection of essays about how female country artists profoundly impact individual lives with contributions from Taylor Swift, New York Times best-selling author Alice Randall, Rosanne Cash, Grammy-winning historian Holly George-Warren, poet Caroline Randall Williams, top James Beard Award winner Ronni Lundy, food activist Ali Berlow and more, Gleason understands curating a narrative can sometimes reach places a single reported narrative can’t. That was the goal for PRINE ON PRINE, and across myriad mediums, moments and conversations, a sense of the man across his truly lived life emerges.
Steve Earle & Holly Gleason Discuss PRINE ON PRINE at NYC's Strand | Photo Credit Rhonda Markowtiz |
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Early Praise for PRINE ON PRINE: Interviews & Encounters
As close to an autobiography as we’re going to get from John Prine, Prine On Prine captures the inimitable, whimsical voice of one of our greatest songwriters, from the beginning of his career to his final days, evolving from the shy, self-effacing, uncertain youngster film critic Roger Ebert discovered to the wise, cunning veteran who left a body of work probably second only to Dylan. Nashville legend Holly Gleason knew the man and assembled this brilliant collection with a knowing eye and loving heart.
-- Joel Selvin, Here Comes The Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm + Blues; Fare The Well: The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead’s Long Strange Trip
I’m so grateful that Holly has put together this fantastic collection of the best interviews and articles about our beloved John Prine, spanning the whole six decades of his extraordinary career. For all of us who loves and miss him so, this book is truly a treasured gift.
-- Bonnie Raitt
Holly has created a beautiful collage by using John’s words to bring us into the center of his world where family music imagination and love reside with his struggle to remain that kid from Maywood whose curiosity birthed the beautiful songs and music he gifted to the world.
-- Fiona Prine
So much insight and so many great personal stories behind this legendary, super talent. If you’re a John Prine fan, you’re going to love this book. If you’re not, please read it and listen to his music. You will then no doubt be one.
-- George Strait
Listening to John Prine instantly jolts me to a higher vibration and feels like I’m walking on holy ground, free, fearless and naked as the eyes of a clown. He shakes me, wakes me, conjuring up emotions I didn’t know I had, reminding me that tenderness is a virtue. His words make me want to be a better person, to recognize myself in everyone’s eyes, to hold all humanity in high esteem - because we’re all in it together. Praise be to Holly Gleason for this oh so important, exquisitely curated collection. John Prine improved the world by being alive. Let’s do our best keep that big, beautiful ball rolling.
-- Pamela Des Barres, I’m With The Band and Lets Spend The Night Together
The brilliant genius of John Prine was not only the magic he had in writing about everyday life for everyday people; but just as important was that his lyrics provoked you into thinking about everyday things that you may never have given much thought to and after he woke up those feelings, you realized you couldn’t have said it any better. The respect, admiration and love for Prine and his songs that Holly Gleason has is obvious not only in her eloquent introduction, but in the interviews she selected to pay proper homage to him.
-- Linda Moran, President & CEO, Songwriters Hall Of Fame
Nobody wrote songs like John Prine, filled with humor, humanity, and perfectly cock-eyed detail. But what this elegantly curated collection—culled from interviews, TV and radio appearances, and even recipes—reveals is that...well, that’s just who the guy was. Whether he’s at the Library of Congress or in the pages of Hot Rod magazine, Prine’s wit and fierce independence constantly shine through.
-- Alan Light, The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley &the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah”
I’ve loved John Prine since I was a little girl. PRINE ON PRINE makes me feel like he’s been talking to me since he was a young man, and seeing him go through the phases of his career is a real gift. Holly Gleason knew John, so she understood how to take these interviews, movie scripts, tv shows and recipes and create a sense of who he was when he got done writing or performing. Now even more than a legend, he feels like a favorite uncle.
-- Miranda Lambert
With a deep understanding and knowledge of John Prine – the man and his music – Holly Gleason has searched every nook and cranny to curate a thoughtful biography of one of our greatest singer-songwriters. Her insightful text sets the scene as we experience Prine, the unfiltered raconteur, via five decades of media coverage, from major magazines to niche publications, television scripts to a recipe book, talk show appearances, movie roles and his PEN Award presentation. Prine on Prine is both revelatory and entertaining.
-- Holly George-Warren, Janis: Her Life & Music and A Man Called Destruction: The Life & Music of Alex Chilton
Reality can involve a lot of imagination, and no one was better at imagining and painting real pictures about people you felt you knew. I enjoyed getting to know John more through Holly’s curation and writing. A true master.
-- Eric Church
This book is a stunner! Only the glorious Holly Gleason could assemble such a magnificent collection to celebrate the life and world-changing artistry of her friend John Prine. Perhaps the most joyful history book you’ll ever read. His music explodes from the pages.
-- Tom DeSavia, Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of LA Punk and More Fun In The New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of LA Punk
About Holly Gleason
Holly Gleason is the 2023 Southern California Media Awards Entertainment Journalist of the Year, as well Music Criticism and Entertainment News Feature (Magazine). An author, journalist and academic whose work regularly appeared in Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Musician, Variety, Oxford American, Playboy, Interview and Miami Herald, she serves as HITS Nashville Editor and a Pollstar Sr. Contributing Editor. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame/Case Western Reserve Fellow is the 2019 Country Music Association Media Achievement Award winner, creator/contributor of the 2018 Belmont Book Award-winning Woman Walk The Line: How The Women of Country Music Changed Our Life, co-author of Miranda Lambert’s New York Times best-seller Y’All Eat Yet: Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin Kitchen and Prine on Prine: Interviews & Encounters, published by Chicago Review Press Sept. 2023. She lives in Nashville, Tenn.
