We've waited a long, lonely time for John Prine to come back to New Haven. The last time I heard him sing in this town was in the late '70s or early '80s -- I pulled my clipping of that great event out of the 'ol peach box of yellowing Register music reviews, but I hadn't written down the date on the thing. Still, it told me this much: I had a nice time talking with the man in his room at the Holiday Inn, a few hours before he hit the stage at Toad's Place. (He got excited about eating at Louis' Lunch when I told him about the place, but it was closed that night.)
He told me about being a mail man back in Chicago as he was trying to break into the singing business. Shortly after he got the nerve to tell the U.S. Postal Service he was retiring from their employ, he landed a recording contract (because somebody realized the guy could write fabulous lyrics as well as sing them beautifully) and in 1971 he released that first album, "John Prine." Still a classic.
Yeah, but when I went to the Holiday Inn that day, the clerk downstairs had never heard of John Prine. And if you'd walked around downtown last Friday night, just before he so moved the crowd at the Shubert Theater, I'm sure plenty of people would have replied, "John who?" if you had asked them about that name.
No, he didn't sell out the place, but that's OK. He got up there with his fellow guitarists, Jason Wilber and Dave "Daddy" Jacques and he shared a wonderful evening with us.
Maybe you know his "Angel From Montgomery," because Bonnie Raitt had a hit with it. Well, he sang that beautiful song for us and at least a dozen more, and he told us stories between them. For instance, he talked about singing in a Chicago club on Thursday nights after he'd gotten done delivering the mail.
My favorite moment was when he sang "Hello in There," the most moving song about old people you ever will hear. Jacques' mourning deep bass was a wonderful accompaniment.
The encore, after a rousing standing ovation, was "Paradise," his ode to Muhlenburg County and the Green River "where paradise lay." And he wants his daddy to take him back there, but no: "I'm sorry, my son...Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away."
Prine reveres the country, the traditions, the struggling people.
If you ever get another chance, go and listen.
Thanks, John Prine. I hope this time you made it to Louis' Lunch.

Dear God: Boston without The Globe?
It could happen, and very soon.
For the past 137 years, the Boston Globe has been a key part of the fabric of Beantown. The people of that city and its suburbs and way beyond that, including many in Connecticut, have long relied on its news reporters, columnists, sportswriters, editorial writers, photographers and many others to bring them the full story and plenty of analysis.
But in the 1990s the Globe's owners made a big mistake: they allowed the paper to be sold to the New York Times. And now, with newspapers everywhere reeling in a bad economy (even The Times), the Times' management ordered the Globe's unions to make $20 millions in givebacks and contract concessions -- or the paper will be shut down.
Union leaders say they have managed to find those $20 millions in painful cutbacks but still Times' managers are saying it's not enough.
As a student at Boston University in the early 1970s, I learned to love and appreciate the Globe. When I moved back to Boston for a year in the 1980s, I freelanced there. Once I had the great experience of going into the newsroom. I wonder what's left of it now.
I can only hope that the civic leaders of Boston, who are known for their backing of institutions such as newspapers, will ride to the rescue, coming in like Paul Revere himself.
If not, Boston will be left with -- the Herald. A tabloid. It now has 10 reporters. Count 'em, 10.
Who's going to cover City Hall? Who will tell local fans about the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Bruins?
Say it ain't so, Beantown.