Souvenirs

1	Souvenirs 3:42
2	Fish and Whistle 3:00
3	Far from Me 5:09
4	Angel from Montgomery 5:07
5	Donald and Lydia 4:09
6	Christmas in Prison 3:36
7	Storm Windows 4:26
8	Grandpa Was a Carpenter 2:52
9	The Late John Garfield Blues 3:46
10	Blue Umbrella 3:53
11	Six O'Clock News 4:36
12	People Puttin' People Down 4:00
13	Sam Stone 4:39
14	Please Don't Bury Me 3:06
15	Hello in There 4:57

Barnes & Noble

One of the best of the wave of singer-songwriters who emerged in the early 1970s, John Prine won friends and admirers with his plainspokenly evocative tales. Prine's rich album catalogue includes biting social commentaries, wryly amusing love songs, and bittersweet stories about the kind of people you know -- or are. Souvenirs collects 15 of Prine's finest songs - including such Prine standards as "Sam Stone," "Donald and Lydia," "Christmas in Prison" and "Please Don't Bury Me" -- in brand-new versions, with an emphasis on material from the artist's early LPs. The resulting album is something like a longtime fan's dream set list, and the warmth and intimacy of the performances (on which Prine is accompanied by longtime cohorts Jason Wilber, Dave Jacques, and Phil Parlapiano) enhance the live feeling. When Prine wrote "Angel from Montgomery" and "Hello in There," stories about the loneliness and lost dreams of old people, he was a young man. Now he's a cancer survivor, a new dad, and a witness to a lot of time gone by, and Prine's well-traveled voice conveys the songs' resonant insights with an immediacy rooted in experience. Amy Weivoda

All Music Guide

In the liner notes to John Prine's 2000 album Souvenirs, he calls the songs he has recorded during his 30-year career "faithful companions." They are indeed warm, friendly, and boldly intimate, whispering secrets to the listener -- but at the same time they are growing older and smoothing their youthful edge. In an effort to have his own master recordings of his favorite and most popular songs, Prine re-recorded 15 tracks for release in Germany (as he has always wanted to be popular in Germany), but upon hearing these re-recorded versions Oh Boy Records decided to release them in the U.S. (as Prine has always wanted to be popular there as well). The result is an interesting mix, wherein the historical stories ("Grandpa Was a Carpenter," "The Late John Garfield Blues") and rocking chair reminiscences ("Angel From Montgomery") are recalled with a genuine wisdom of the years, but the songs tinged with Prine's signature cynical smirk ("People Puttin' People Down," "Please Don't Bury Me") have lost some of their cheeky, finger-pointing optimism and almost sound like grumbling. Along with other performers who have tried to regain access to their compositions by re-recording them (it seems everyone from Merle Haggard to Prince has lost original song rights at some point), John Prine's contemporary touches on these old favorites may provide new insights, but the new versions rarely surpass the originals. Zac Johnson