John Prine - Souvenirs LP vinyl record

Brand new, still sealed.

When John Prine wrote and recorded the likes of "Hello in There," "Angel from Montgomery," and "Souvenirs" in the early '70s, he came across like a Social Security recipient in a young man's body. As he revisits those tunes and more favorites from his salad days, the wisdom Prine possessed as a twentysomething troubadour seems all the more remarkable. The raison d'être for Souvenirs may be rather prosaic. Prine rerecorded 15 early classics so that he could own master recordings of a bunch of songs from his first three albums, as well as a few stragglers from the late '70s and early '80s. But the flatteringly spare arrangements and Prine's wizened delivery only add weight to these heavy-hearted folk tunes. "It took me years to get those souvenirs / And I don't know how they slipped away from me," Prine sings on the title track, a remnant from 1972's Diamonds in the Rough. Well, John, they didn't slip away at all; they're still shining like gems under a layer of dust.

Track Listings