John Prine (featuring guest Billy Lee Riley) - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, U.S.A 1980 | Albums That Should Exist

 Now we’re talking . . . and most welcome given his tragic loss five years ago, worth re-visiting if you don’t have this

John Prine with Billy Lee Riley - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 1-6-1980

Paul says: Here's another "PBS Soundstage" episode. This time, it's a John Prine concert from 1980. 

He was joined on two songs by Billy Lee Riley. Riley had a few hits in the 1950s, especially the song "Red Hot" in 1957. After that, he stayed in the music business for a while, working mostly as a producer. However, by the 1970s, he got a job in the construction industry instead. But in the late 1970s he made a minor comeback, and this appearance was a part of it. He died in 2009 of cancer after some more minor comebacks.

Bob Dylan was a big fan. Here's what he said about him in 2015:

"He was a true original. He did it all: He played, he sang, he wrote. He would have been a bigger star but Jerry Lee [Lewis] came along. And you know what happens when someone like that comes along. You just don't stand a chance. So Billy became what is known in the industry — a condescending term — as a one-hit wonder. But sometimes, just sometimes, once in a while, a one-hit wonder can make a more powerful impact than a recording star who's got 20 or 30 hits behind him. And Billy's hit song was called "Red Hot," and it was red hot. It could blast you out of your skull and make you feel happy about it. Change your life."

I don't have much to say about John Prine in comparison, because I figure a lot more people interested in this album will know about Prine than they will about Riley. A few months prior to this concert, Prine released his sixth studio album, "Pink Cadillac." It was different from his previous albums. Instead of his usual singer-songwriter style, he focused more on 1950s rock and roll, with about half of the album being covers of songs from that era, and the originals on the album being influenced by that style. We can see some of that in this concert, for instance his cover of the 1950s classic "Ubangi Stomp." And his involvement with Riley on two songs fits perfectly into that.

The recording of this unreleased concert is pretty good. However, I had some trouble with the cheering at the ends of songs ending abruptly. Probably, that was when the TV show quickly cut to commercial breaks. So I did a little editing to add a reasonable amount of cheering after every song. The last song, "How Lucky," had no cheering at all. It probably wasn't actually recorded in the same concert as the rest. But I added some cheering at the end of that one too to help it fit in.

This album is 49 minutes long.

All songs by John Prine except where noted 

01 talk 
02 Automobile 
03 Spanish Pipedream 
04 Fish and Whistle
05 talk 
06 Angel from Montgomery
07 The Accident [Things Could Be Worse] 
08 Ubangi Stomp 
09 talk
10 Hello in There 
11 Paradise
12 talk 
13 No Name Girl (John Prine & Billy Lee Riley)
14 talk (John Prine & Billy Lee Riley)
15 Red Hot (John Prine & Billy Lee Riley)
16 Bruised Orange [Chain of Sorrow] 
17 Saigon 
18 How Lucky