Sweet Revenge (John Prine album)

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Sweet Revenge
Studio album by
John Prine
ReleasedOctober 1973
VenueState University of New York, New Paltz, New York
StudioQuadrafonic Sound Studios, Nashville, Tennessee; Atlantic Studios, New York City
LabelAtlantic
ProducerArif Mardin
John Prine chronology
Diamonds in the Rough
(1972) 		Sweet Revenge
(1973) 		Common Sense
(1975)

Sweet Revenge is the third album by American country and folk singer and songwriter John Prine, released in 1973.

Recording and composition

Sweet Revenge was produced by

Sweet Inspirations, and Houston, Deidre Tuck, and Judy Clay sing with Prine on the title track's call-and-response sections, adding a soulful blend to Prine's ragged hillbilly edge.[2]
"Sweet Revenge" reflects some of Prine's frustrations with how his second album was received, commenting in the Great Days: The John Prine Anthology liner notes, "I'd quit my job at the post office, I had this album out that got incredible reviews, and then this second one where the critics started to hit me. I think it got under my skin."

In the liner notes to John Prine Live, Prine writes that "Mexican Home" was partially inspired by his father Bill sitting on his front porch in Maywood, Illinois, while "Grandpa Was A Carpenter" was his homage to his grandfather Empson Schobie Prine. "Christmas in Prison" mixed humor with pathos, romantic longing with some of Prine's most cinematic imagery to date.[3] In the Great Days liner notes, Prine writes of the tune, "It's about a person being somewhere like a prison, in a situation they don't want to be in. And wishing they were somewhere else. But I used all the imagery as if it were an actual prison, with the lights swinging around the yard, the food tasting bad, making guns out of wood or soap. And being a sentimental guy, I put it at Christmas." "Please Don't Bury Me" was a rollicking country toe-tapper with some intricate guitar interplay but had been redrafted, with Prine recalling in Great Days, “That song was originally about this character I had in mind called Tom Brewster. He dies but he wasn't suppose [sic] to, like that scene in those old movies. The angels have to send him back, but they can't the way he is. So they send him back as a rooster. Which is why his name is Brewster. I ended up trashing that whole part and came up with this idea of the guy just giving all of his organs away, and I made a whole song out of that.”

The album cover is a far cry from the somewhat naive portraits of the singer on his first two LPs: a bearded, denim-clad Prine - wearing sunglasses and pointy-toed cowboy boots, a cigarette jutting from his lips - sprawls across the leather front seats of a 1959 Porsche convertible, the "first toy" the singer purchased with his record company money.[4]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
[7]

Amazon.com writes, "This outing isn't as musically distinctive as Prine's other albums from his early period, but as collections of songs go, it's first-rate."[8] Tom Nolan's 1974 review of the album for Rolling Stone was positive, calling the album "a more human work, more mature, and a step forward artistically and toward a wider audience," and "his best record yet."[9]

Track listing

All tracks composed by John Prine, except "Nine Pound Hammer".

  1. "Sweet Revenge"
  2. "Please Don't Bury Me"
  3. "Christmas in Prison"
  4. "Dear Abby" recorded live at State University of New York, New Paltz, New York
  5. "Blue Umbrella"
  6. "Often is a Word I Seldom Use"
  7. "Onomatopoeia"
  8. "Grandpa Was a Carpenter"
  9. "The Accident (Things Could Be Worse)"
  10. "Mexican Home"
  11. "A Good Time"
  12. "Nine Pound Hammer" (Merle Travis)

Personnel

  • John Prine – vocals, acoustic guitar
  • Steve Goodman – guitar, backing vocals
  • Ralph MacDonald – percussion
  • Grady Martin – guitar, dobro
  • Bobby Wood – keyboards, piano
  • Kenny Ascher
    – keyboards, piano
  • Steve Burgh – electric and acoustic guitar
  • Johnny Christopher – acoustic guitar
  • Cissy Houston – backing vocals
  • Judy Clay – steel guitar, backing vocals
  • Doyle Grisham – steel guitar
  • Leo LeBlanc – guitar, steel guitar
  • Mike Leech – bass, upright bass
  • Raun MacKinnon – harmony vocals, gut-string guitar
  • Kenny Malone – drums
  • Hugh McDonald – bass, percussion
  • Steve Mosley – drums
  • Dave Prine – guitar, banjo, dobro, fiddle
  • Jerry Shook – harmonica
  • William Slater – bass, percussion
  • Deirdre Tuck Corley – backing vocals
  • Reggie Young – lead electric guitar
  • David Briggs – organ, piano
  • Arif Mardin – horn arrangement on "Often is a Word I Seldom Use" and "Mexican Home"
Technical
  • Brad Davis, Jimmy Douglass, Steve Ham, Frank Hubach, Bob Liftin - engineer
  • Ira Friedlander - album design
  • Wendie Lombardi - cover photography

Chart positions

Year Chart Position
1973 Billboard Pop Albums 135

References

  1. ^ Huffman 2015, p. 88.
  2. ^ Huffman 2015, p. 86.
  3. ^ Huffman 2015, p. 87.
  4. ^ Huffman 2015, p. 89.
  5. Allmusic
    . Retrieved July 9, 2011.
  6. ^
    ISBN 089919026X
    . Retrieved March 10, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  7. ISBN 978-0195313734
    .
  8. ^ Stolder, Steven (n.d.). "Amazon.com Editorial Review". Amazon.com. Retrieved October 4, 2021.
  9. ^ Nolan, Tom (31 January 1974). "Sweet Revenge > Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 6, 2014.

Bibliography

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