According to the latest reports, John Prine is going to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. The organization on Thursday announced that the folk singer-songwriter and Americana favourite is among The Recording Academy’s 2020 class of Special Merit Awards honorees.
Recording Academy, President and CEO, Deborah Dugan said, “Our industry is one that prides itself on influence and paying it forward, and each year the Recording Academy has the privilege of honouring a select group of visionaries whose creative contributions have rippled throughout our culture. Our Special Merit Awards recipients have molded their musical passion into pieces of history that will continue to influence and inspire generations of music creators and music lovers to come.”
Prine, who began his career in the early 1970s, after moving to Chicago used to work as a mailman, he used to write songs and played open mic events on the side while working as a mailman. His early career classics include “Sam Stone” and “Angel From Montgomery,” made famous by Bonnie Raitt. In the 80s, Prine formed his own record label, Oh Boy Records and his 1999 album In Spite of Ourselves, which is a collection of duets on classic country songs with female artists including Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, and others remains a favourite to date.
In the late 90s, Prine even battled squamous cell cancer, and required speech therapy in order to fully recover; but the operation left him with even more gravel voice than before. Bad luck for Prine was not over as in 2013 fought with lung cancer.
In 2018, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee, Prine released his album, The Tree of Forgiveness. That album, along with 2016’s For Better, or Worse helped Prine to get introduced to the new generation of fans that resulted in critical acclaim, especially in the Americana music world.
