The veteran songwriter celebrated surviving cancer with 1999’s In Spite of Ourselves, a set of country classics sung as male-female duets that proved righteously popular. Here, he repeats the trick with an impressive parade of young female singers to complement his own leathery tones, the exception being Iris DeMent. Most songs, made famous by the likes of George Jones and Jessi Colter, evoke the “countrypolitan” Nashville of the 50s and 60s, with Prine cast as laconic observer while the women take the lead. Kacey Musgraves is a standout on the divorcee’s lament Mental Cruelty, Lee Ann Womack and Alison Krauss soar gracefully and DeMent proves a reliably salty foil. Joyous, maudlin or gritty, it’s marriage country-style. Delightful.
