John Prine | In Spite Of Ourselves [Compact Disc] CD

In Spite of Ourselves is the 13th studio album of John Prine, featuring duets with various well-known female folk and alt-country vocalists, released in 1999.

The album was Prine’s first release since successfully battling throat cancer. The female duet partners include Iris DeMent, Connie Smith, Lucinda Williams, Trisha Yearwood, Melba Montgomery, Emmylou Harris, Dolores Keane, Patty Loveless, and his wife, Fiona Prine.

You’ve got to hand it to John Prine. On the first song on In Spite of Ourselves he plunges valiantly into “(We’re Not) The Jet Set”, singing the part made famous by George Jones, the Caruso of country music. And Prine, never blessed with the most pliant pipes, promptly pancakes a note flatter than Kansas. Aw, heck! The songwriter’s songwriter takes a curious turn with his first studio album since 1995’s Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings. Here he’s penned only the hysterically coarse title track, opting instead to coo a slew of classic lovin’-and-losin’ country tunes with Iris Dement, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Connie Smith, Trisha Yearwood, Melba Montgomery, Patty Loveless, Fiona Prine and Dolores Keane. Given Prine’s ragged-but-right voice, the effect is something akin to casting a grizzled character actor opposite Katherine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story. And you know what? It’d probably still be a charming (albeit very different) movie, because romantic comedies, like country duets, are all about chemistry, which is something this collection of duets has in excess. –Steven Stolder