A Nashville mixing engineer, Jamie Tate, posted this on social media:BigMack3000 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 10:52 pmThis one cuts deep. I've always loved this acoustic rendition of "How Lucky" from the Colbert Report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fw0rhcTgz8
Here's the link to that recording.Jamie Tate wrote:I saw John Prine last October. We were both getting takeout from the same BBQ place for lunch. I wasn't sure it was him. He looked very different than he did 20 years earlier when I worked with him while recording the soundtrack for a Billy Bob Thornton movie (the movie was Daddy and Them). John also starred in the movie.
Then, one of the songs I recorded with him came on the restaurant's PA. Weird! So I decided to go over and say hi.
That song, "In Spite Of Ourselves," was recorded to play over the end credits and went on to become one of his more widely known songs.
We recorded three different versions of it. The version I'm posting here was the first one. It never went beyond this rough mix I did in the wee early morning hours of December 12th, 1998.
Iris DeMent would later come in to sing the second verse, but in this version John sings the entire song.
Travis Tritt and Marty Stuart are playing acoustic guitars on this version.
The second version was done the next day and had a full band with drums(!). Then we finally recoded the version we all know a few days later.
I post this as a tribute to the man. Thanks for all the music, Mr. Prine!
Also, that song is actually the title track of a really good duets album. It's no mere side project or oddity - it's one of Prine's best even though he wrote only the title song for it. He has multiple singing partners - the ones with DeMent are the highlights, particularly the title song, but they're all good. And DeMent herself is a great singer-songwriter, with My Life alone being one of the great albums of the '90s.