John Prine’s table of love
John Prine collection (Image courtesy of Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, items on loan from the John Prine family.)
Singer-songwriter John Prine traveled around the world.
But he performed with the comforts of home.
A collection of heartfelt treasures were always on a black-draped table at the center of the stage behind Prine. The materials provided comfort and emotional support for Prine as he faced large audiences.
The items celebrated his roots in Maywood, Ill. as well as his family and friends in Nashville, Tn. They included:
* A plastic motorcycle man from Prine’s childhood.
* A pocket knife.
* Family photos.
* An Archie’s comic book, often “Jughead.”
* A hot dog trophy from his sold-out Dec. 31, 2019 Grand Ole Opry show in Nashville.
* A quarter (eagle only, not state), nickel, penny, and dime. The change he had to have in his pocket when he walked on stage.
* Black sharpie for setlists and notes.
* Toothpicks (had to be in plastic).
And more. These items are some of the highlights of the “The State of Sound” exhibit that opens April 30 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Il. The exhibit features Howlin’ Wolf’s harmonica, Miles Davis’ red custom trumpet, Curtis Mayfield’s 1970s paisley pants and vest suit, Jon Langford’s Sundowners wood print, and 125 other artifacts. Prine is one of the most human characters in the exhibit and the John Prine family loaned the museum some of its most human items.
John Prine, Illinois poet laureate.
“The State of Sound” is the perfect cradle for Prine’s memories. In 2020 Prine became the first honorary poet laureate of the State of Illinois. Governor J.B. Pritzker gave Prine the honor nearly three months after the songwriter died on April 7, 2020, from complications of COVID-19. He was 73 years old.
Mitchell Drosin was Prine’s tour manager from 1991 until his death. Drosin also became booking agent in 2013. In an engaging phone conversation from his home in North Carolina Drosin helped me interpret the museum items. I was content developer-script writer for the exhibit under the guiding eye of the presidential library’s director of exhibits, Lance Tawzer.
“It was a security blanket,” Drosin said. “It takes a lot of balls to walk on stage. I never asked him about all of it but he always walked back to the table. Usually to get a sip of water. But then he could see pictures of his family. His mother, his kids, Fiona (his wife). He wasn’t looking at a setlist. It was all these things that you have. It was his little private area even though he was publicly out there.”
Image courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
When Drosin started working with Prine, he performed solo or with a three-piece band. The collection grew over time.
“When he was a solo we used the cover of his guitar case,” Drosin recalled. “It became too small because back then he smoked cigarettes. We needed an ashtray, his water and this and that. He got a band and the stages got bigger. So we got a six-by-six-foot folding table we would take on the road. That way I could put all his stuff on one table. The opening acts used to love it. Sometimes they would put their setlist on it.”
Prine had a superstition that Drosin did not discover until after working with the singer-songwriter for 12 years. Drosin said, “He’d be ready to go on stage and he’d say, “I don’t have my nickel.’ I’d say, ‘What are you going to buy on stage?’ He always had to have a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter in his pocket. I never knew what that was about, but every show he had to have that coinage.” Prine began the small change ritual in 1996 after his first bout with neck cancer.
The Archie comic books brought back childhood memories for Prine. Perhaps he would take them to Strutzel’s Root Beer Stand in Maywood. “He was a huge, huge, huge Archie fanatic,” Drosin said. “October 10 was his birthday and when we were on tour we’d make sure to purchase an old and kind of expensive Archie comic book.”
Back in the day bands used spiral-bound tour books that detailed the itinerary, hotel and promoter information and days off. Music fans can still find discarded tour books for sale at The Great Escape in Nashville, one of Prine’s favorite haunts. A tour book was designed that said “John Prine Plays Riverdale!” with Prine on stage and Riverdale high school fans Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge, and Jughead Jones dancing in front of the stage.
John Prine tour guide (Image courtesy of Mitchell Drosin.)
“I keep it on my desk,” Drosin said. “This was the last itinerary. John loved tour books. I printed the books but John always came up with the front and back covers. He never wanted his name on it. The rest of the band had the tour on their phones. John never used a smartphone. He had a flip phone. I never purchased a smartphone because John was the boss. He always wanted the tour books.”
Prine loved to peruse eBay as he wound down after a gig. He would stay up until two or three in the morning on his computer. That’s where he found the toy cars and toy motorcycles.
“John couldn’t eat dinner until after the show,” Drosin said. “That’s common with a lot of male performers. Women never have a problem. We’d only work weekends. On Fridays John would like a hot dog and potato chips, being from Chicago. We were already in town so we’d find a hot dog stand. On Saturdays, it would be Dairy Queen because we’d be traveling to another city.”
Promoter Darin Lashinksy of Frank Productions in Madison, Wis. often traveled with the Prine group. Lashinksy had the hot dog trophy commissioned because of Prine’s love of the frankfurter. You might expect that from someone who worked for Frank Productions. Prine liked to say he’d rather eat a hot dog than write a song.
The table of love included water, different colored guitar picks, and a vintage capo. The small capo clamps onto the neck of a guitar and shortens the length of the strigs, raising their pitch. “John was such an old school guitar player, we had to have old capos,” Drosin explained. “The new capos are super easy to use. But back when John started they were stretchy, rubber band capos that went around the neck. They were hard to use but he mastered it. Bonnie Raitt once went to use one of his capos and it went flinging into the audience. They were Dean Markley capos (established 1972) so I had to buy 144 of them before they ran out. No one used them but Prine. Because he had no salvia glands due to all his cancer, we had to have three bottles of Evian water. Evian is a ‘soft water’ so it was a lubricant for his throat.
“For years we didn’t use a setlist. The Maui setlist, maybe if Kristofferson was in town, he would come to the show because he had a house in Hana. For the last five or six years, we recorded at least 85 percent of all the live shows. What John would do occasionally is if he couldn’t remember the opening act, I had to write it in big letters and put that on the table. But yeah, the table held a lot of things. Andy (Primus, sound engineer) would get him these great minted toothpicks he found on Amazon.”
A native of Long Island, N.Y., Drosin has been freelancing in tour management since he was 17 years old. He’s now 61. He’s also tour managed for Rickie Lee Jones, Let’s Active, singer-songwriters Greg Brown, Iris DeMent, and John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards. Drosin also managed singer-songwriter Todd Snider.
“I think I started with John (Prine) him because I’m short like him,” Drosin said. “The first question his manager asked me was how tall I was. I never got asked anything from my resume. I was on tour with Bob Mould and about to take a tour with Buddy Guy. Al Bunetta (Prine’s late manager) called me because he heard I was available.”
Prine was the ultimate good guy. “As a tour manager, you got to fit in,” Drosin explained. “We liked to play cards. We talked about cars and station wagons. Fiona and my wife say ‘We were wives’. Everyone said, ‘What is he like?’ I’d say, ‘You just saw two-and-a-half hours of what he is like. All smiles. Very generous. We’d break down, getting merch down, get back to the hotel two hours after the show and he’d have cocktails waiting for us that he made. It was amazing.”
John Prine, a new friend, and Mitchell Drosin (R) on tour in Australia (Courtesy of Mitchell Drosin.)
Drosin’s connection with Prine became so tight that he bought Drosin a very low mileage 1996 Buick Estate station wagon as a surprise for his 61st birthday.
“All this with the table was so unique to John,” he said. “Most people just have their setlist and water on the floor. No one had a long table like that.” No one had the big ol’ goofy heart like John Prine.
Marvelous story. Thank you, Dave!
Thank you, Jeff! Stay in touch.