a good thing

i haven't seen sean penn's new film, into the wild, which is based on jon krauker's 1996 biography of chris mcandless, a young man who gave up his cushy suburban life to brave it on his own in the wilderness, but according to an aquarium drunkard, it features an on screen duet of one of my absolute favorite songs, "angel from montgomery"...written by chicago native john prine in 1971, i actually prefer bonnie raitt's incredible take from her 1974 album, streetlights, which also features great version's of joni mitchell's "that song about the midway", james taylor's "rainy day man", & allen toussaint's "what is success"...as a fan of cover songs, i'll admit that it's usually pretty hard to beat the original, but bonnie raitt always seems to take the songs she's playing & make them her own...& as a fan of bonnie raitt, that's a good thing.

download: bonnie raitt - angel from montgomery
download: bonnie raitt - that song about the midway
download: bonnie raitt - rainy day man
download: bonnie raitt - what is success

related: the drunkard is featuring a live john prine/bonnie raitt duet of the song over at his place, taken from a concert for late local folk legend steve goodman...goodman was actually part responsible for the song's release; if he hadn't urged kris kristofferson, who he was sharing a bill with in chicago, to come with him & see prine play in an empty old town bar after their show, kristofferson never would have hooked prine up with atlantic records & his self-titled album might have never come out...alright, he probably would have picked up somewhere, but it's still a cool story...goodman ended up playing guitar & singing harmony on a couple of the album's songs as well...but not this one.

download: john prine - angel from montgomery