John Prine & Iris DeMent

In spite of ourselves

John Edward Prine was born on October 10, 1946 in Maywood, Illinois, worked as a mailman, and was discovered in Chicago; Kris Kristofferson invited him to open shows in 1971, and Roger Ebert's 1970 review in the Sun-Times raised his profile. He co-founded Oh Boy Records in Nashville in 1981 and won a Grammy for The Missing Years (1991) and for Fair & Square (2005). He died on April 7, 2020, aged 73. Iris Luella DeMent was born on January 5, 1961 in Paragould, Arkansas; she wrote her first song in 1986, released Infamous Angel (1992) and My Life (1994, a Grammy nominee), and runs her own Flariella Records.

The partnership grew out of In Spite of Ourselves (Oh Boy, September 28, 1999), a sixteen-track album of classic country duets with women singers, produced by Jim Rooney and Prine at Cowboy Arms Recording Studio and Jack's Tracks in Nashville. It was recorded in stretches from August 1997 to 1999 and reached 21 on Billboard's country albums chart. Prine said he had a list of 35 women and the first nine he called all said yes. Rooney had handed him a cassette of DeMent's Infamous Angel before its release. DeMent sings on four tracks: "(We're Not) the Jet Set", "Let's Invite Them Over", "We Could" and the title song. Christgau gave the album an A and wrote that DeMent cuts every one of these ladies; AllMusic's Michael B. Smith gave it 4.5 stars.

DeMent opened and sang duets on Prine's fall 1999 tour, including Seattle on October 29 and 30 and Salt Lake City on November 1, and a four-night Chicago stand from November 19. She guested on the live album In Person & On Stage (2010) and on For Better, or Worse (September 30, 2016), and they performed on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2016 and at the Americana Honors and Awards at the Ryman on September 13, 2017. DeMent said of Prine afterward that he was so present when he was here.