Today’s album is the late John Prine’s 1978 album, “Bruised Orange”. I must admit, I heard about his passing and many musicians speaking about what he meant to the world of music, but I had never listened to him up to this point. I stumbled across “Bruised Orange” going through some sort of folk rock rabbit-hole online, and figured it’d be a good listen for today.
“Fish and Whistle” sounds with some great acoustic guitar. My immediate reaction is it sounds like some sort of soundscape mix between Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Jim Croce, though I guess those are some pretty big names in the Americana folk rock scene. That upbeat bass really gets the track bouncing along, and there’s a really nice whistle that adds a bit of flare and originality to the track that makes it memorable, in my opinion.
“There She Goes” sounds like some bluegrass-y bluesy folk. Almost a bit of country, especially with that slide pedal steel guitar. I finally understand to some degree the impact he must’ve had on the world of music with his music. Prine just keeps that nice upbeat tempo going, until he slows things down a bit in “If You Don’t Want My Love”. It’s a nice soft sweepingly gentle type of tune, but that acoustic guitar takes no breaks and keeps gently and intricately strumming away in the background. The tone of the bass is super tasty in this track, while the gospel type chorus really gives a certain ethereal element to the song, add in some heavenly piano and you’ve got one heck of a tune.
“That’s the Way the World Goes Round” starts in an awfully folksy manner, and the tune picks up with some great acoustic and some, once again, incredibly tasty bass tone and playing. It’s an incredible song that sort of gets the listener in a twirl as they sing and play circles around you as they sing about the world going round. In short, awesome track.
Up next is a rough, gruff sounding song “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)”, and Prine seems to be doing an incredibly original impression of Bob Dylan as his voice is a little more nasally than in the other tracks, or perhaps it just stands out more in this one, and it adds a great character to the song. It’s a great storytelling-sounding song that leaves me struggling to follow the lyrics a bit (not unlike a classic Dylan song) as I am enamored with the interplay between the piano, the electric guitar in the background, and the pedal steel guitar to the side. Oh wow, then the solos come in with saxophone or possibly the clarinet, and it just immediately sweeps you away. It almost sounds holy in a manner of speaking with the gospel type background singing and I believe I can hear some organ as well.
“Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone” is the next track that sort of simmers the album down a bit after that heat coming from the previous track, but it allows me to take a breath as well, which is well needed. This song reminds me a lot of a folksy Paul Simon type of track, and the accordion really adds such a great layer to the song. I think there’s some saxophone in this (it could be clarinet, I’m not gonna lie), and it really adds some depth to this track, and the album as well.
“Aw Heck” comes off as a nice classic folk country tune, and infectiously so. The background vocals in this really make this a home run, and when the piano comes in its an absolute grand slam. This track was a lot of fun to listen to.
The next one up is “Crooked Piece of Time”, and I can’t compare it to any music I can think of. Bob Dylan is probably closest, but this is too different to honestly compare the two. The layers in this song is just superb; there’s so much going on. There’s the piano and organ and guitar playing off each other in such a jammy type way.
“Iron Ore Betty” sounds like a country rock type of track that just further increases my amazement of John Prine’s music, as well as my amazement I hadn’t heard his music until now. This song reminds me a bit of Gram Parsons, but again, it’s so different that I can’t justifiably compare the two. Nevertheless, you can really get down to this tune.
The final track of this album is “The Hobo Song” that really softens things up and Prine’s voice songs a little bit more nasally at times, but gosh the instrumentation is absolutely awesome. The harmonica has this great swishiness to it, and the pedal steel guitar really complements that rhythm of the acoustic guitar very well. Truly an awesome track, and the outro chorus is really awesome with how incredibly full-sounding is. Honestly a great piece of Americana music, that really uses different instrumentation and layers of said instrumentation to great effect.
I will be listening to more John Prine sooner than later, as this was a great experience. At only 33 minutes, if you haven’t gotten to check out John Prine’s music yet, or you have and haven’t checked out this album, and you can spare a half hour, it will hopefully leave you wanting more as it did me.
-A