Country-folk singer and songwriter John Prine died Tuesday, April 7 at age 73. The musician passed away as a result of complications from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.
Prine was hospitalized with a “sudden onset” of COVID-19 symptoms on March 26 and intubated on March 28, his family wrote in a statement posted to Instagram on March 29. His wife of 23 years, Fiona Whelan Prine, was also diagnosed with COVID-19 earlier in March and had been keeping fans updated about Prine’s condition while he was in the hospital.
Prine was honored at January’s Grammys with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Bonnie Raitt sang Prine’s 1971 ballad “Angel from Montgomery” — one of her signature concert songs — onstage. Artists who covered his songs included John Denver, the Everly Brothers, Carly Simon, Dwight Yoakum and Bette Midler.
Prine survived cancer twice. In 1998, he had surgery and radiation to fight squamous cell cancer that was found on his neck, and underwent a year of speech therapy before he could perform again, with a more gravelly voice. In 2013, he survived lung cancer. He released his last album, The Tree of Forgiveness, in 2018.
He is survived by wife Fiona and their three children.
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