John Prine
The Bottom Line, New York, NY
June 11, 1978

01 Spanish Pipedream
02 Often is a Word I Seldom Use
03 Angel from Montgomery
04 Fish and Whistle
05 Crooked Piece of Time
06 Blue Umbrella
07 Illegal Smile
08 Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone
09 The Bottomless Lake
10 Sam Stone
11 That’s the Way That the World Goes Round
12 There She Goes
13 I Had a Dream Last Night
14 Chinatown
15 If You Don’t Want My Love
16 Try to Find Another Man
17 Everything’s About the Same

18 Hello in There
19 Grandpa Was a Carpenter
20 Ballad of a Teenage Queen
21 Paradise
22 Please Don’t Bury Me
23 Sleepy Eyed Boy
24 Treat Me Nice
25 Onomatopeia
26 Sailin’ Around
27 Mexican Home
28 How Lucky Can One Man Get
29 I’m Not That Good at Goodbye
30 Saddle in the Rain

Excellent Recording and Show: Soundboard or FM. No Details.

John Prine
“Live at the Bottom Line”
The Bottom Line, New York, NY
1978-07-10

Lineage: SBD > Cassette > ??? > Speed Correction > Track Splitting > FLAC Level 8

Setlist:

1. Fish and Whistle
2. Angel From Montgomery
3. My Own Best Friend
4. Crooked Piece of Time
5. Blue Umbrella
6. Donald and Lydia
7. Illegal Smile
8. Intro to Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone
9. Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone
10. The Bottomless Lake
11. Intro to Sam Stone
12. Sam Stone
13. That’s the Way That the World Goes ‘Round
14. There She Goes
15. I Had a Dream
16. If You Don’t Want My Love
17. Chinatown
18. Pretty Good
19. Intro to Bruised Orange
20. Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrow)
21. Hello in There
22. Grandpa Was a Carpenter
23. Ballad of a Teenage Queen
24. Paradise
25. Please Don’t Bury Me
26. Sleepy Eyed Boy
27. Treat Me Nice
28. Sweet Revenge
29. How Lucky
30. Sailin’ Around
31. Saddle in the Rain
32. Onomatopoeia
33. I’m Not That Good at Goodbye
34. Mexican Home

Total Duration: 133 minutes and 32 seconds

Band:

John Prine – guitar, vocals
Howard Levy – piano, organ, harmonica, pennywhistle, mandolin
Johnny Burns – lead guitar
Tommy “Pickles” Piekarski – bass
Angelo Varias – drums

Notes:

Coincidentally, lots of John Prine’s best sounding shows are from his “Chicago band” era in the late-70’s. Johnny Burns, who led Prine’s band at the time, has been sharing a lot of John Prine memories on Facebook recently.

Prine did 4 shows at the famous Greenwich Village nightclub, the Bottom Line, on two nights back-to-back in 1978. One of the shows on 11th July has been very widely circulated for decades, yet the shows on the previous night had been relatively unknown to collectors. Actually, the 10th one sounds evidently better than the 11th one!!

This concert promoted Prine’s “Bruised Orange” album. It featured the only known electric full-band recording of “Donald and Lydia”, a song Prine almost always did acoustic. It also included several rarely-done covers: Johnny Cash’s “The Ballad of a Teenage Queen”, Elvis Presley’s “Treat Me Nice” and Lefty Frizzell’s “I’m Not That Good at Goodbye”.

This show might have been in circulation for a few years, but I believe this speed-corrected version has never been circulated before. I have a copy of the show on the 11th too, but it’s missing a 18th track, Bruised Orange. If any body have a copy with that song included, please reseed. Thanks! All these Bottom Line shows were recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show.

Do not sell this recording.
Enjoy and feel free to share it anywhere.
Support the artists by purchasing their official releases and going to their live shows.
If you’re tired of physical CDs, you can go to Prine’s Bandcamp website and purchase his albums in FLAC/ALAC/WAV lossless format: http://johnprine.bandcamp.com/
John McCutcheon wrote a very touching tribute song to Prine, so good that it moved me to tears. You can hear it at https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=691194858300006.