Arts Week with Judy Murphy

The wonderful country singer John Prine, who spent so much time in Galway during his later years, will be the subject of a tribute concert in the city’s Town Hall Theatre next month. Meath band Bruised Orange, will be at the venue on Friday, February 16, to perform some of his best-known and most popular works.

Prine wrote about everything: life, love and social issues, and his songs were often an extraordinary blend of humour and darkness.

His fans included Jonny Cash, Bob Dylan and Roger Waters, with Dylan describing his creations as “pure Proustian  existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree . . . he writes beautiful songs. All that stuff about Sam Stone, the soldier junkie daddy, and Donald and Lydia, where people make love from ten miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that”.

Prine, who died in April 2020 of Covid-related complications, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in that same year, acknowledging him as one of the finest and most influential singer-songwriters of his generation.

His songs were droll, deadpan observations on everyday life, stories which were sometimes so understated that listeners often had to hear them twice to get the joke – or the knife-stab of fate.

Among those with whom he recorded was Galway singer Dolores Keane, who featured on his 1999 album, In Spite of Ourselves, a series of duets with singers that also included Iris DeMent, Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams.

Bruised Orange, huge fans of Prine’s, have toured Ireland extensively over the past two years, selling out venues including Waterford’s Theatre Royal, the Marketplace Theatre in Armagh, Navan’s Solstice Arts Centre, and the Source Arts Centre in Thurles.

Pictured: Meath tribute band, Bruised Orange.