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- Date Released: April 26, 2005
- Genre: Country/Folk
- Style: Folk Singer-Songwriter
- Label: Oh Boy Records
Prine finds glory in the subdued.
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We Say...
John Prine’s never been a guy for grand gestures or fancy flourishes. When a woman enchants him, it’s the little things that catch his attention. “She uses Eveready batteries to keep/ Her electrical appliances going steady,” he sings in “She Is My Everything,” setting a new standard for finding poetry in the mundane. Fair & Square, as its title implies, eschews emotional extremes in favor of a tone of acceptance and resignation; released in 2005, it was his first album of new material after his recovery from neck cancer.
In “Taking a Walk,” a protagonist brimming with anger avoids blowing his stack by casually exiting threatening situations. And in “Clay Pigeons” — written by the late Texan Blaze Foley — a character forces himself, slowly and tentatively, to re-engage with a world that’s left him feeling bitter and isolated. The production, by Prine with engineer Gary Paczosa, is suitably low-key: the band finds a groove, establishes a melody, then steps back to let the pickers do their thing. Fair & Square isn’t as revelatory as Prine’s 1991 classic, The Missing Years, but it finds glory in subdued moments, and offers insight into the avoidance of risk. -
They Say...
Never an artist known to push himself harder than necessary, 2005's Fair and Square was John Prine's first album in five years, and his first set dominated by new material since 1995's Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings (a live album, a set of covers and a collection of new recordings of older material helped fill the gap). Of course, Prine had a fair amount to occupy him during that decade between new albums, most notably a bout with cancer in 1999, and while by all accounts Prine beat the disease with proper treatment, the man on Fair and Square seems a good bit less scrappy and more contemplative than the guy who cut Prine's most memorable material. The lyric sheet for Fair and Square reads like classic John Prine, with plenty of sly regular-guy wit and pithy observations on the state of life ("Crazy as a Loon"), love ("She Is My Everything") and the world around us ("Some Humans Ain't Human" and "My Darlin' Hometown"), but the spare, simple production (by Prine and engineer Gary Paczosa) and the rueful tone of Prine's vocals suggest a man who is just a bit weary, though that seems to be not a matter of health as much as advancing maturity and the world around him (with "Some Humans Ain't Human" explicitly addressing the War in Iraq amidst other recent failures of compassion). It's significant that the disc's "bonus tracks" are easily the most upbeat -- the funny henpecked husband's tale of "Other Side Of Town" and "Safety Joe," a witty warning about the dangers of too much caution. There's plenty of fine music on Fair and Square (Jerry Douglas and Alison Krauss are among the stellar pickers on-board) and there still isn't anyone who writes quite like John Prine, but for the most part this album is an unusually spare and subdued effort from an artist who usually can't help but crack a smile; with any luck he'll be feeling a bit more hopeful next time out, though this is still great music for a quiet afternoon.
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| 01. |  |
Glory of True Love |
4:12 |
|
| 02. | |
Crazy as a Loon |
5:03 |
|
| 03. | |
Long Monday |
3:22 |
|
| 04. | |
Taking a Walk |
6:09 |
|
| 05. | |
Some Humans Ain't Human |
7:03 |
|
| 06. | |
My Darlin' Hometown |
3:14 |
|
| 07. | |
Morning Train |
4:02 |
|
| 08. | |
The Moon Is Down |
3:47 |
|
| 09. | |
Clay Pigeons |
4:27 |
|
| 10. | |
She Is My Everything |
4:25 |
|
| 11. | |
I Hate It When That Happens to Me |
2:49 |
|
| 12. | |
Bear Creek Blues |
4:45 |
|
| 13. | |
Other Side of Town |
4:53 |
|
| 14. | |
Safety Joe |
3:58 |
|
14 Total Tracks, 62:09 Total Length
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Credits
- Jerry Douglas - Weissenborn // Alison Krauss - Harmony Vocals // John Prine - Guitar (Acoustic) // John Prine - Guitar (Electric) // John Prine - Vocals // John Prine - Producer // John Prine - Finger Picking // Pat McLaughlin - Guitar (Acoustic) // Pat McLaughlin - Mandolin // Pat McLaughlin - Guitar (Electric) // Pat McLaughlin - Vocals (Background) // Pat McLaughlin - Harmony Vocals // Pat McLaughlin - Wurlitzer // Pat McLaughlin - Soloist // Al Bunetta - Direction // Al Bunetta - Management // Shawn Camp - Guitar (Electric) // Don Cobb - Mastering // Dan Dugmore - Guitar (Steel) // Paul Griffith - Drums // Gary Paczosa - Producer // Gary Paczosa - Engineer // Gary Paczosa - Mixing // Dan Tyminski - Harmony Vocals // Eric Conn - Mastering // Thomas Johnson - Engineer // Thomas Johnson - Assistant Engineer // John Wilkes Booth - Mandolin // John Wilkes Booth - Soloist // Mindy Smith - Vocals (Background) // Mindy Smith - Harmony Vocals // Dana Arnett - Design
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