The following is a reprint of an album review I published over 5 years ago on another web-site of his 1st LP, John Prine, 1971 Atlantic Records :

John Prine died yesterday of complications resulting from the global coronavirus pandemic, and I kept hearing his song "Please Don't Bury Me" in my head all day long.
Last week I sold my personal copy of his 1st album "John Prine" (Atlantic, 1971), it was probably the 10th or 15th copy I've owned in the almost 50 years in came out. All of them 1st pressings, or early repressings, all with the lyrics insert, this last one actually had a printed lyrics inner sleeve, which was pretty cool, and rare!
I was into Prine right from the "git-go"! Actually buying a sealed 1st pressing right from the store when it came out in 1971. I played that record from start to finish always, his humor, songwriting talent & honesty really connected with me, even at the age of 15. My favorite songs were "Illegal Smile", "Spanish Pipedream", "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore", and "Paradise", but really, I liked everything on the whole album!
In late 1972 when I hit my High School sophomore year in the Rio Grande Valley, I had 2 female teachers in my English Literature class, both in their late 20's and they loved to show us lyrics by the pop stars of the day to help us in our "creative writing" projects throughout the school year. So they would spoon feed us printed lyrics by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Carole King, John Denver, to name a few. One day they handed me a piece of paper with the lyrics to "Paradise", my favorite John Prine song from his 1st album, only the paper said John Denver had written it (Denver had recorded it on one of his albums). Now, I was a pretty shy guy in my high school days, but I managed to work up the courage to walk over to their desks and tell my college educated teachers that "Paradise" had in fact been written by a certain John Prine. They just stared at me for a moment, then walked over to where they actually had a stash of their albums and verified the true songwriting credit on the John Denver record. They gave me a star for that day for pointing that out and I walked away from their desks with a great big smile! That made my day.
I went on to buy all of his albums from that day forward, and in 1994, at The Austin Aqua Festival, which lasted for 10 days each August at Auditorium Shores right by the Colorado River in downtown Austin, Texas, they had 5 outdoor stages every year, but that year I went to just one, to see a long awaited live performance by one of my heroes, John Prine! It was a windy summer night, I can still see him cupping his hands to light his cigarette in-between songs, the wind blowing, especially through his rooster hair! He played all the good ones up to that point. What a night that was.