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John Prine: In Spite of Himself

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published March 17, 2015 at 12:05 PM EDT

A conversation with North Carolina music journalist and author Eddie Huffman about his new book

Legendary singer-songwriter John Prine is best known for writing "Angel from Montgomery," "Sam Stone," and "Paradise." 

His musical career began humbly in the late 1960s while he was still working as a mailman in Illinois. Five decades later, Prine is a Nashville icon who has won a litany of awards, including two Grammys and a lifetime achievement award for songwriting from the Americana Music Association. 

North Carolina music journalist Eddie Huffman wrote the first-ever biography of Prine that traces the musician from his family roots in Kentucky through struggles with alcohol and cancer in his adult life, to where he stands in the music scene today. 

We'll talk with Mr. Huffman, contributing music writer for the Greensboro News & Record and Winston-Salem Journal, about his new biography John Prine: In Spite of Himself. Huffman will be reading from his new book at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham on March 25 and at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro on April 10.

All that's left of John Prine's ancestral home, Paradise, Kentucky, is a few family cemeteries. He commemorated the song in "Paradise" on his self-titled 1971 debut album.
Eddie Huffman /
All that's left of John Prine's ancestral home, Paradise, Kentucky, is a few family cemeteries. He commemorated the song in "Paradise" on his self-titled 1971 debut album.
John Prine's boyhood home, a worker's cottage on First Avenue in Maywood, Illinois. He lived there with his brothers, parents, and grandparents -- including the grandfather he sang about in "Grandpa Was a Carpenter."
Eddie Huffman /
John Prine's boyhood home, a worker's cottage on First Avenue in Maywood, Illinois. He lived there with his brothers, parents, and grandparents -- including the grandfather he sang about in "Grandpa Was a Carpenter."
John Prine's parents gave him his first guitar, a 1960 Silvertone Kentucky Blue archtop -- seen here on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.
Eddie Huffman /
John Prine's parents gave him his first guitar, a 1960 Silvertone Kentucky Blue archtop -- seen here on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.
The exhibit, "John Prine: It Took Me Years to Get These Souvenirs," at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville ran from November 2013 through May 2014.
Eddie Huffman /
The exhibit, "John Prine: It Took Me Years to Get These Souvenirs," at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville ran from November 2013 through May 2014.
The plaque honoring John Prine on the Proviso East Alumni Wall of Fame at his high school in Maywood, Illinois.
Eddie Huffman /
The plaque honoring John Prine on the Proviso East Alumni Wall of Fame at his high school in Maywood, Illinois.

Copyright 2015 North Carolina Public Radio
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio