Singer-songwriter John Prine dies of COVID-19 complications
Singer-songwriter John Prine, the Grammy Award-winning country and folk legend who inspired Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, died Tuesday in Nashville from complications of the COVID-19 coronavirus, his family said. He was 73.
Prine, a two-time cancer survivor, was hospitalized in March after testing positive for the virus, and was put on a ventilator.
Prine got his start in music while working as a mailman in Illinois. He would sing at open-mic nights, and in 1970, Roger Ebert caught one of his performances and gave him a rave review in the Chicago Sun-Times. Prine credited Ebert with getting his music career going, and he went on to release a dozen albums over five decades.
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Dubbed "the Mark Twain of American songwriting" by Rolling Stone, Prine in 2005 became the first singer-songwriter to perform at the Library of Congress, and earlier this year, he was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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