John Prine returns to Old Town School and lets the jokes hold the sorrow together

John Prine’s Live at Old Town School of Folk receives 22 June review attention, and the location carries the whole emotional architecture. The Old Town School of Folk Music is where Prine’s brother first took him as a teenager, helping redirect a drifting kid toward the guitar, the stage and eventually one of America’s great songwriting lives. The 2010 concert recording is presented as his first entirely unedited live set, preserving the songs, jokes, banter and three-hour generosity that made his performances feel less like concerts and more like communal storytelling nights. By then, Prine’s post-cancer voice had deepened into a gravelly elder-statesman instrument, but the humour still kept the sadness from turning heavy. This release is not just archive work. It is a room opening again, with Prine still somehow laughing from the microphone.

Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/john-prine-live-at-old-town-school-of-folk-music/