John Prine - Found Dogs

Found Dogs reopens the vault around John Prine's Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings, offering demos, alternate takes and songs that never made the cut.

Issued by Oh Boy Records, the label Prine co-founded, it was timed to land a day before what would have been his 80th birthday. The sessions behind Lost Dogs came at a pivotal moment in his career, and this set shows a master songwriter at work, trying different shapes for songs that would become fan favourites and leaving others on the shelf for decades.

The early Lake Marie demo is a treat, the sprawling, half-spoken story song in rougher, more intimate form. Humidity Built the Snowman appears as a solo acoustic performance, stripping it down to his voice and guitar, while World Without Love, one of several previously unheard originals, sits easily alongside the songs he chose to release. A cover of Johnny Horton's All for the Love of a Girl shows the country roots that always ran under his writing.

It is a generous, warm-hearted record, full of the humour and plainspoken tenderness that made Prine so beloved. Anyone who treasures his catalogue will hear these ten tracks as an unexpected visit from an old friend, rough edges and all.