It might not be unlike Bob Dylan or Jeff Tweedy to name a song after another singer-songwriter; even those in lesser-known realms often pay homage to their elders.
Take Brendan Forrest, an emerging voice in the Americana scene on “Song for John Prine,” a poignant tribute to the late folk legend that Glide is premiering below. This single is from Forrest’s upcoming EP Daydreaming Music Fiend (out 9/27/2024) and captures the essence of Prine’s influence on a new generation of songwriters. Forrest captivates with a folksy howl that summons a sense of rawness and maturity, typically reserved for artists like Prine whose populist folk made him an American treasure,
“It was written the night of his passing away and I found his death to be the first real personal loss from Covid. The peaking death rate numbers were reported in the media yet still I hadn’t heard of anyone personally who’d been affected – and then BAM, John Prine had been taken by Covid. It felt surreal,“ says Forrest.
While most seemed to have encountered Prine later in their artistic growth, Forrest considers himself a longtime fan.
“Prine was a later influence on me. I didn’t really put one and one together in how culturally significant he was, especially being from Chicago. But then again my parents didn’t raise us on that much folk music. So when I started doing a deeper dive into Americana and realized how big of a deal he was – that was right around the time when The Tree of Forgiveness came out (2018) – I remember seeing all these billboards for his album off the side of the Kennedy expressway in Chicago… and I remember thinking to myself how fucking cool is it that this old man is still lauded like this as a folk hero into the 20th century. That was the moment I realized I could “grow old” with folk music,” adds Forrest.
Well, this week is as good as any other to take a walk down the Prine Way, as Brendan Forest has just shown us…..
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awesome tunes