Kurt Vile live in Bristol (Jessica Bartolini / Live4ever)
Kurt Vile has announced the release of a new EP, one which amounts to a love letter from Vile to both Nashville and his musical inspirations.
Thus, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (ep) features two John Prine covers; the first of which, How Lucky, has a contribution from Prine himself recorded by the country folk legend at the end of last year before his death in April 2020.
“The truth is John was my hero for a long time when he came into the butcher shoppe to recut one of his deepest classics with me and, man, I was floating and flying and i couldn’t hear anything he told me while he was there till after he was gone for the night,” Vile recalls.
“Speaking of John talkin to me, well, his songs, they speak to my soul. that’s the real reason I picked them to play. (but the other reasons are real as well.) a couple nights later we were playing “how lucky” together again; this time onstage at the Grand Ole Opry on New Year’s Eve at the turn of 2020. Nothing like seeing John and his band of musical brothers and family and friends playing into the new decade in front of an adoring audience on that stage in Nashville, TN… and, yup, that’s just how lucky we all got that night.”