A veteran of the Chicago folk scene of the late 1960s and early 70s, John Prine ought to be more difficult to cover. He writes for his own voice, an instrument with a uniquely warm wryness and a limited range, which means his melodies are homey and modest, as if he’s making them up on the spot. More crucially, his songs– crammed with stray details and wonderfully skewed insights– are strongly tied to his part huckster, part good ol’ boy personality. Prine’s a songwriter’s songwriter, which means that the very traits that ought to make him hard to cover only make covering him an attractive notion. Many have pulled it off, too: George Strait, 10,000 Maniacs, Fairport Convention, and Johnny Cash.
Even so, an album of Prine covers is a dodgy proposition. It’s bound to be erratic; tribute albums are by nature inconsistent, and the particulars of Prine’s songwriting make it likely that just as many people will stagger as will step lively. By focusing on several insightful interpretations and by spotlighting some of Prine’s lesser-known tracks, however, Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows actually has some surprisingly high highs and some lows that are as forgivable as they are inevitable. No one covers “Sam Stone”, thankfully, nor “Hello in There”, “Paradise”, or his biggest single, “Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard”. Of course, someone’s going to tackle “Angel From Montgomery”, an aching, oft-covered tune that is one of Prine’s most popular. Old Crow Medicine Show make it sound pretty rote, with singer Ketch Secor even mimicking Prine’s distinctive cadence. They sound a bit overwhelmed.
For the most part, these are fan choices, revealing the less-explored depths of the tributee’s catalog and reveling in the often contradictory aspects of his songwriting. Few of the artists, however, can actually capture that hardened ambiguity, that sense of laughing while crying. Recasting one of Prine’s more boisterous songs as a quiet solo folk rumination, Josh Ritter savors the details of “Mexican Home”, singing “Take the fan from the window/ Prop the door back with a broom” like he wished he’d written that line. But he sounds overserious, which makes the composition seem a bit stuff. Likewise, Sara Watkins has a perfectly lovely voice for the melody of “The Late John Garfield Blues”, but she misses the song’s gruff self-deprecation. Even though Prine wrote it in his mid-twenties, it’s a song for and by a middle-age man.
But others strike a finer balance. Abandoning the ethereal folk of Bon Iver, Justin Vernon invests “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)” with an earthy gravity, packing in a novel’s worth of detail in just four minutes. On “Spanish Pipedream”, the Avett Brothers have a blast realizing that hippie escapism is both futile and fun, and it’s been years since Conor Oberst has sounded as volatile and energetic as he does on “Wedding Day in Funeralville”. The Drive-By Truckers’ turn “Daddy’s Little Pumpkin” into a bluesy stomp, and Mike Cooley sings it like he wrote it for Jerry Lee Lewis’ lascivious leer. But the best moment may be Lambchop’s “Six O’Clock News”, a lesser-known track from Prine’s 1971 debut. Singing in a clipped cadence, Kurt Wagner finds the ideal balance for the whimsical (“‘God bless this kitchen,’ said the knick-knack shelf”) and the grisly (“the whole town saw Jimmy on the six o’clock news/ His brains were on the sidewalk and blood was on his shoes”). It’s a dark song, barely leavened by its glimpses of humor, but that’s Prine’s secret: heartache demands humor, and vice versa.
— Stephen M. Deusner, June 10, 2010
1. Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow) – Justin Vernon of Bon Iver 4:02
2. Wedding Day In Funeralville – Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band 2:09
3. All The Best – My Morning Jacket 3:16
4. Mexican Home – Josh Ritter 3:28
5. Six O’Clock News – Lambchop 4:24
6. Far From Me – Justin Townes Earle 4:35
7. Spanish Pipedream – The Avett Brothers 3:04
8. Angel From Montgomery – Old Crow Medicine Show 4:30
9. The Late John Garfield Blues – Sara Watkins 4:06
10. Daddy’s Little Pumpkin – Drive-By Truckers 3:12
11. Unwed Fathers – Deer Tick feat. Liz Isenberg 3:40
12. Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian – Those Darlins 3:37