Stepping out of Dad’s shadow: Tommy Prine returns to The Burl in Lexington

The time was September 2021. Live music, which had largely been absent from club settings over the previous 18 months due to the unshakeable COVID-19 pandemic, was starting to bloom again. And what better way to celebrate the reawakening than with a John Prine song.

On the outdoor stage of The Burl that Saturday evening was Cincinnati songsmith Arlo McKinley singing alongside Tommy Prine, the latter only two weeks away from his 26th birthday. Both bore strong ties to the heralded songwriter who became one of COVID’s first high-profile casualties the previous year. McKinley was the last artist signed to Oh Boy Records, the label co-founded by Prine in the 1980s. Tommy, the elder Prine’s youngest son, was still, in many respects, just out of the starting gate in terms of establishing his own name and his own career.

The two joined forces at The Burl to sing what is perhaps John Prine’s most cherished work, “Paradise” — an enduring musical snapshot depicting the love and devastation shown to the Muhlenberg County homestead where the elder Prine spent many summers in his youth.

This was no time for nostalgia, though. On this fall night, the song’s heritage couldn’t help but take a back seat to the still pronounced sense of loss that surrounded John Prine’s departure.

In a now regularly circulated quote, Tommy Prine told The PBS NewsHour’s Tom Casciato, “I know that the world lost one of the best songwriters ever. I lost my dad.”

Returning to The Burl

Fast forward to here and now. The younger Prine is assuredly singing his own songs, many of which were introduced last year at this time via his debut solo album, “This Far South.” Similarly, his return Burl shows, which now pop up once or twice year, allow him to play headliner. He performs at The Burl again on May 9 (curiously, McKinley is also back for a two-night engagement at the venue starting the next evening.)

The songs and the shows have been incremental steps in letting audiences know Tommy Prine is not, as he views himself in the assumed estimation of many fans, “John Prine, Jr.”

“The difficulties in establishing who I am just involved going down the same path I was going to go down anyway. Being in my mid-to-late 20s when my dad died, I was just trying to figure out my place in the world. But it really hasn’t been all that difficult, or at least not any more difficult than anything else would have been.”

Embedded within the 11 tunes that make up “This Far South” are stories that tell a life story — a still-youthful one, mind you. Some unavoidably reference his father, other present a more expansive self-portrait of an artist and individual seeking his own identity.

“People always say you have your whole life to make your first record. Basically, I think that gives a lot of artists choice paralysis. But I’m very proud of the project that we came up with. It definitely represents me as a person sonically and lyrically and will allow me to go wherever I want as I move forward.”

Songwriting influences from dad, beyond

Perhaps the album’s most revealing composition is “Cash Carter Hill,” a blend of folk-flavored resolve and electric, even anthemic might. “Silence is peace in a living man’s head,” Prine sings. “There’s noise from the void when you talk to the dead.”

The song, stylistically, has little to do with what we think of as John Prine music. But one similarity abounds — a sense of efficiency in the storytelling. Like father John, son Tommy doesn’t mince words. He also doesn’t waste them.

“My father never told me how to do something. But he always believed in offering a song with as few words as possible. So sometimes, when he looked over my songs, he would say, ‘I can see what you’re saying, but I think you can say it another way with about half as many words.

“He would say, ‘Just be as simple and honest as you can be. Try to say as much as you can with as few words as possible.’”

While his father was an indelible influence, the inspirations that helped shape Tommy Prine were plentiful. His soaked up the noise and urgency of Green Day and the Sex Pistols, claimed André 3000 of Outkast as one of his favorite wordsmiths and found a strong kinship to the songwriting of Americana hero Jason Isbell.

The latter has figured somewhat prominently in the young artist’s career. Prine opened a Georgia concert for Isbell in March, prompting a response from the six-time Grammy winner recently on X that stated “We love that Tommy.” Also, Sadler Vaden, Isbell’s longtime guitarist in his 400 Unit band, is generously featured on “This Far South,” especially during the power chord crescendos of “Cash Carter Hill.”

Where his self-confidence comes from

But for all the inevitable lines drawn between Prine and his esteemed father, there is another family member that helped forge the former’s career — mother Fiona Prine. Having served as John Prine’s manager during the final years of his life, she also managed Tommy’s career during its initial stages.

“She instilled just a really genuine sense of self-confidence in me that has gone a long way,” Tommy said. “That was so important, something that I needed. It definitely wasn’t an arrogance, but a confidence and a belief in myself to do the work that was required to be an artist.

“I truly am half of my mother and half of my father.”

Tommy Prine with Darrin Hacquard

When: May 9, 8 p.m.

Where: The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd.

Tickets: $17 through theburlky.com/shows.