A thin line of pink is holding on to sunset blue in the West. Orange clouds and burning autumn sky bringing another day to an end. It's been quiet. I launched my website a year ago this month and also my first EP called Acoustic. I made it with my buddy Rufus and we recorded it on a hot December afternoon in 2018 with Jaco Naude at Audioculture studios in Pretoria. My, time has flown. Last year this time I was on tour, wrapping up the last few shows of The Vagabonds and Brokenhearted Lovers tour through the beautiful Karoo. Then I was getting ready to leave the boys and join some friends for Afrikaburn 2019. What an amazing experience. Desert, Stars, Lights, Music, Art and Beautiful People. Who would have thought that the whole world would be locked inside their dwellings riding out and hopefully avoiding the invisible virus sweeping through our cities and countries.
Many of us in the singer/songwriter world are also still coming to terms with the loss of John Prine. Why, some might ask, do you feel like this about the passing of a stranger. My simple answer is the following: John Prine had songs for every emotion, every situation, every desire and everything in between. To me, John was always there, and you knew he was a cool guy. Loved and respected by everyone who got to meet, work or even correspond with him. The real deal. I used to buy Uncut and Mojo Magazine. They would usually arrive a month late to South Africa and cost me two or three hours of hard earned pay but this particular one, Uncut, had Springsteen on the cover and had a bonus CD of artists in the same genre as the Boss. On there I discovered Tom Russell, Dave Alvin, Jeffrey Foucault, Slaid Cleaves and many others. Holy Shit !!!!!! I still have that album and it always blows my mind. Also, there was an article featuring...John Prine... "The Quiet American" it read and it had a black and white picture of John with that typical wry smile of his looking into your soul. I could not believe I had never heard of him, but I wanted to know more. I knew the people who spoke about him in the article and reading the reviews they had in there about his most prominent albums confirmed my desicion to try and order it from our local record store in my hometown. It arrivedlater, all the way from the States, John Prine Live. I hurried to my friend Rufus and we popped it in the CD Player. We skipped to the one song everybody raved about..Sam Stone. Rufus and I didnt say a word, we were blown away. Both our fathers had served and no one wrote songs about them, but it could be about them, or their fellow soldiers. I had a feeling of being changed forever, I had had that feeling before when I discovered Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan. Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. Empathy, humor, wisdom. I went to see John in Dallas in 2018. The show was amazing, the communion even better. People were singing along to every song and he sang Lake Marie. My favourite John Prine songs and probably one of the best songs, in my opinion, ever written. The world is empty withoutPrine but we have his songs and his stories. You can listen to his songs and you can try and not make the same mistakes as the characters or you can try and be better or.....sing Mexican Home at your Grandfathers funeral. That is the music and genius of John Prine. He will be missed.
If you would like to listen to my music, you can do so for free on this very website. You can also drop me an email if you feel like it on barnardjurgens@yahoo.com
Im happy to have my website up and running and I am grateful to Bethany Rucinski for all her help with the technical stuff.
I hope everyone is staying safe and being responsible. Take care for now.