American songwriter and two time Grammy winner John Prine passed away at the age of 73 on April 9, 2020 after contracting COVID-19, a virus that, at the time, had just newly shut down the world as we knew it in a matter of weeks. Shortly afterwards, Ohio University School of Interdisciplinary Arts PhD candidate and instructor Angela Opell Adkins gave her students a gift, deceptively presented as one of their first virtual assignments.
“I told them ‘this is what you’re going to do: you’re going to listen to John Prine’s first record, and I want you to really get in there and hear these songs,” said Adkins, whose academic work focuses on a critical re-examination of country music. “Their response was great. The moment you first hear John Prine, if you’re going to love it, you’ll know right away. It can be kind of like panning for gold and finally finding a nugget.”