Cooking for John Prine
A few years back, I had a dream gig at Humboldt State, catering meals as the residential chef for visiting artists performing on campus. It was the perfect intersection of my two longtime passions: cooking good food and talking to musicians.
When legendary singer-songwriter John Prine came to town, though, the kitchen routine changed. For his touring band, I put together my reliable crowd-pleaser: grilled chicken breasts smothered in a rich, Brazilian-style sauce of sweet peppers, tomatoes and coconut milk, served alongside fluffy rice pilaf, grilled seasonal vegetables and a decadent bread pudding with warm caramel sauce. They ate happily in the dressing room before the show.
Prine, however, didn’t like playing on a full stomach. He wanted a late dinner served after his set, and the hospitality rider in his contract came with very specific instructions. I’m sure his diet changed later on, but back then he specifically requested well-done ground beef, mashed potatoes, brown gravy and a couple of slices of bread. Most importantly: absolutely nothing green. No side vegetables, no salad, not even a sprig of parsley. And a bottle of good whiskey on the side — I believe we tracked down some Jack Daniel’s. My chef’s pride wouldn’t let me serve a music legend just an ordinary patty of overcooked hamburger. So I set out to elevate it without violating his rules. I trimmed a tender New York strip, finely chopped it by hand and seasoned it into a gourmet chopped steak that could take a hard sear without turning dry as leather. Velvety, butter-whipped potatoes and a rich, scratch-made pan gravy rounded it out.
After his marvelous performance, I served him alone in the quiet of the green room.
To break the ice, I mentioned a recent Bonnie Raitt concert I’d caught — an environmental benefit where she sang a couple of his signature tunes, “Angel from Montgomery” and the especially fitting “Paradise.”
That got him talking. He shared the bittersweet irony of the Peabody Coal Company, the villain of “Paradise.” They had lost a massive lawsuit and were being forced by the courts to try to nurse some of the strip-mined ridges in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, back to health.
Now, he chuckled wryly, the company was rebranding itself as a “green” friend of the Earth, touting their ecological stewardship when they were just complying to heavy legal arm-twisting.
I had picked up a copy of his latest release at the merchandise table — a greatest hits collection on the Oh Boy Records label, featuring newly recorded versions of songs especially from that seminal 1971 debut. I asked him if he had gone back into the studio because the tunes were timeless, or if he felt he had something fresh to say with them.
He laid out the plain, unvarnished truth: he didn’t see a nickel of royalties from the classic tracks he’d cut for the major labels decades earlier. The corporate lawyers had sewn up the contracts so the company kept every dime of his back-catalog recordings. If he wanted to make an honest living off his own songwriting, he had to start from scratch and cut them all over again. In the music business, he said, greedy suits were all too comfortable letting the working songwriter go hungry. Oh Boy was his own label where he owned everything and recorded like-minded artists.
Prine certainly didn’t go hungry that night. He completely cleared the plate, using the bread to wipe up the very last smear of gravy. Before I packed up the dishes, he thanked me for the supper and poured us each a healthy shot of whiskey. We raised our glasses — I can’t recall the exact words we spoke, but it was a toast to the honest labor of the working man and to the folks who write the songs that keep them company. Oh Boy indeed.
Bob Doran shares his wisdom on music, food and life on Humboldt Hot Air community radio KHHA-LP 94.7FM in Arcata (humboldthotair.org).
