Tom Piazza is a novelist who occasionally moonlights as a music writer.<\/p>\n
Across the pages of his latest nonfiction book, he\u2019s both.<\/p>\n
The New Orleans-based author\u2019s \u201cLiving In the Present with John Prine\u201d (W.W. Norton & Company) is a vivid, intimate narrative of the last two years of the acclaimed country-folk singer-songwriter\u2019s life as viewed through the lens of their friendship.<\/p>\n
It is not the book Piazza expected to write.<\/p>\n
His catalog includes jazz studies and a post-Hurricane Katrina love letter to his adopted hometown, \u201cWhy New Orleans Matters.\u201d More recently, he\u2019s devoted himself to novels, including 2015\u2019s \u201cA Free State\u201d and 2023\u2019s \u201cThe Auburn Conference.\u201d<\/p>\n
What he typically doesn\u2019t do is write musician profiles. It had been more than two decades since he expanded an article about mercurial bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin for the Oxford American magazine into a short book, \u201cTrue Adventures With the King of Bluegrass.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The cover of New Orleans-based author Tom Piazza’s 2025 non-fiction book “Living in the Present with John Prine.”<\/p>\n
PROVIDED IMAGE<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t looking to write another such book. But then he attended his first John Prine concert, at New Orleans\u2019 Saenger Theatre in December 2016. Prine\u2019s rendition of \u201cMexican Home\u201d left Piazza in tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt occurred to me right then that I might want to write something about him,\u201d he writes in \u201cLiving In the Present,\u201d \u201calthough I wasn\u2019t sure just what, or why.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Prine returned to New Orleans for an Orpheum Theater gig in February 2018, Piazza arranged to meet him backstage. He presented Prine with a copy of \u201cTrue Adventures With the King of Bluegrass,\u201d only to discover that Prine already owned it: \u201cI sent off for it with money I made singing!\u201d<\/p>\n
They decided to meet again at Prine\u2019s home in Nashville. During that visit, upon learning that Piazza is a guitarist with an affinity for the songs of bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, Prine promptly handed him a guitar. Piazza played a Hurt tune and Prine started singing along. \u201cI guess we\u2019re friends,\u201d thought Piazza.<\/p>\n
Handsome Johnnys and guitars<\/p>\n
That friendship deepened as they rambled around Gulfport, Florida, where Prine had a vacation house, for an article Piazza wrote for the Oxford American.<\/p>\n
More visits followed. There was a memorable dinner at Prine\u2019s home with Elvis Costello during which Prine\u2019s vintage jukebox nearly caught fire. Prine and Piazza often stayed up late drinking Handsome Johnnys \u2014 ginger ale and vodka \u2014 and playing guitars.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Elvis Costello and John Prine during a dinner at Prine’s house in Nashville. The photo was taken by author Tom Piazza.\u00a0<\/p>\n
PROVIDED PHOTO BY TOM PIAZZA<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn liked to be in the present,\u201d Piazza said in a recent interview. \u201cHe liked to respond to the moment and to whatever was happening in the moment. That was key to him, and that was why we liked to play music together so much. Because you could be in the moment with each other and all it was about was playing this particular song.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fiona Prine, John\u2019s widow, wrote the foreword for \u201cLiving In the Present with John Prine.\u201d Her late husband didn\u2019t make many new friends in his later years, she writes, but Piazza was an exception.<\/p>\n
Prine eventually asked Piazza to help him craft a memoir, one that would not be chronological and linear, but more like their mutual acquaintance Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cChronicles:\u201d free-flowing, free-associated memories and impressions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was kind of hesitant about it at first,\u201d Piazza said. \u201cA couple different music people had asked me to do the same kind of thing, write their memoir with them, and I never wanted to do it. That\u2019s just not my thing. I\u2019m really a novelist more than anything else at this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut John\u2019s way of roping me into this idea was he would say we could just do what we always do”\u2014 hang out, have a couple drinks, play guitar and tell stories\u00a0\u2014\u00a0“and get paid for doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
An unexpected pivot<\/p>\n
The first of what they envisioned as many weekends of interviews for the memoir took place at Prine\u2019s place in late February 2020. They talked extensively about his childhood, his parents, his early years in Nashville with producer, songwriter and all-around character Cowboy Jack Clement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Singer-songwriter John Prine, left, and New Orleans author Tom Piazza attended a Joan Baez concert at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.<\/p>\n
PROVIDED IMAGE<\/p>\n
They planned to reconvene in Nashville again on March 12. But the detonation of the COVID epidemic scuttled those plans. Fiona soon came down with COVID but recovered. Prine caught it and didn\u2019t. He died on April 7, 2020, at age 73.<\/p>\n
Piazza took Prine\u2019s death hard, even though they\u2019d been friends for barely two years: \u201cFor a good while after John died, I couldn\u2019t listen to his records. It was painful.\u201d<\/p>\n
And he couldn\u2019t write Prine\u2019s memoir \u2014 they hadn\u2019t covered enough ground.<\/p>\n
But Piazza eventually realized the project could pivot into something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are led by a ring through your nose by that (original) idea, you\u2019re going to miss most of what\u2019s important. You have to be open for what comes along. There\u2019s an improvisational dimension that, if you don\u2019t attend to that, you\u2019re a different kind of writer than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finding a way forward, Piazza interviewed Prine\u2019s older brother, Dave, who had first showed John the rudiments of guitar and sparked his interest in country and folk music, as well as Prine\u2019s longtime lead guitarist, Jason Wilber.<\/p>\n
Those conversations, the February 2020 memoir session with Prine and scenes from their short-lived but rich friendship formed the basis of \u201cLiving In the Present with John Prine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLittle by little, I realized it was a book about mortality,\u201d Piazza said. \u201cIt was a book about gratitude. It was a book about friendship.<\/p>\n
\u201cSooner or later, in any relationship, one of you is going to be saying goodbye. What to do with that fact? How do you walk away without turning your back?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Singer-songwriter John Prine behind the wheel of his cherry-red 1977 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, in a photo by author Tom Piazza.<\/p>\n
PROVIDED PHOTO BY TOM PIAZZA<\/p>\n
Prine \u201cwas a powerful, powerful presence and spirit for everybody who knew him and for everybody who liked his music.\u201d In writing about him, Piazza didn\u2019t want the tone of the book to be, \u201cOK, folks, I\u2019m gonna tell you all this stuff about John Prine.\u201d<\/p>\n
But neither did he want it to come across as \u201cjust hanging on to John.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to find a middle way where I was bringing (readers) close to John, so that they could experience John and then I could reexperience John, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Piazza\u2019s goal for the book, then, was \u201cto bring him as alive as I could on the page. Give the reader not just information, but an experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experience of living in the present with John Prine.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a depiction. It’s not really a profile,” Piazza said. “The relationship is the point. Hopefully in the relationship, you get as much of a profile of John as you could get.”<\/p>\n
Tom Piazza will discuss “Living In the Present with John Prine” at Octavia Books on Wednesday, Sept. 3 at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Piazza is a novelist who occasionally moonlights as a music writer. Across the pages of his latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[457,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-109485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}