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John Prine On World Cafe

John Prine.
Danny Clinch
/
Courtesy of the artist
John Prine.

Anyone who says you should never meet your heroes because they will disappoint you has never met John Prine. He is everything you love about his songs. He's warm, funny and wise — although you get the sense he's not trying to be. He cares about people and their smallest details and, as his lyrics might suggest, he'll find a way to work pork chops into the conversation.

You don't have to have heard John Prine's music before to feel instantly connected to him. His songs are an invitation to come along. Since his start on the Chicago folk scene in the 1960's, John has taken listeners into the living room of a veteran named "Sam Stone," inside the head of a lonely elderly person in "Hello in There," and over to the small town where his parents were born, "Paradise," Kentucky.

On his latest album, John takes fans to Nebraska on "Egg & Daughter Nite," to outer space to visit the downgraded planet Pluto, and to heaven to sit at a bar called "The Tree of Forgiveness" (which also happens to be the name of John's new record.) Hear our conversation and a live performance in the player.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Talia Schlanger hosts World Cafe, which is distributed by NPR and produced by WXPN, the public radio service of the University of Pennsylvania. She got her start in broadcasting at the CBC, Canada's national public broadcaster. She hosted CBC Radio 2 Weekend Mornings on radio and was the on-camera host for two seasons of the television series CBC Music: Backstage, as well as several prime-time music TV specials for CBC, including the Quietest Concert Ever: On Fundy's Ocean Floor. Schlanger also guest hosted various flagship shows on CBC Radio One, including As It Happens, Day 6 and Because News. Schlanger also won a Canadian Screen Award as a producer for CBC Music Presents: The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions, a cross-country rock 'n' roll road trip.
Since 2017, John Myers has been the producer of NPR's World Cafe, which is produced by WXPN at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Previously he spent about eight years working on the other side of Philly at WHYY as a producer on the staff of Fresh Air with Terry Gross. John was also a member of the team of public radio veterans recruited to develop original programming for Audible and has worked extensively as a freelance producer. His portfolio includes work for the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, The Association for Public Art and the radio documentary, Going Black: The Legacy of Philly Soul Radio. He's taught radio production to preschoolers and college students and, in the late 90's, spent a couple of years traveling around the country as a roadie for the rock band Huffamoose.