With the commonality of home recording equipment, it can be easy for many people to call a recording "folk" music.
Music experts say many genres can be manipulated to fit any sound, especially folk. Give a singer an acoustic guitar and, boom, it's folk music.
For many fans, the genre is a class of music that invites listeners to tap into a region's culture. Some say over time, though, the definition has dissolved.
Many music reviewers call John Prine the true definition of a folk musician, a carbon copy of the everyday guy.
Sixty-year-old Prine was a postman for five years, served in the U.S. Army and, as a musician, has gained a stature of the voice for the working class.
"He has an enormous respect for the working class people," said Ted Kooser, former U.S. Poet Laureate and an English professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with an interesting connection to the musician.
Early in Kooser's term as the new poet laureate, he wanted to do something off the beaten path.
One day, Kooser was drinking coffee with English faculty at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn., and someone asked if he had any ideas of what he wanted to do as poet laureate.Kooser said he wanted to get Prine to come to the U.S. Library of Congress and perform for a night of music and poetry. One faculty member said he knew Prine and would ask him about it.
Then, on March 9, 2004, Prine and Kooser sat together on the Library of Congress stage.
The event was billed not as a concert, but as a literary evening. This was the first time the library had a musician perform since Woody Guthrie in 1936.
This past April marked Prine's return to music with his first album release in six years, "Fair and Square," since 1999's "In Spite of Ourselves."
Prine's voice has lowered and become more gravely since a bout with cancer, but it only adds to his song deliverance and persona.
Prine will be performing tonight at the Civic Music Hall, 1804 Capitol Ave., in Omaha with Iris Dement.
"The hall is smaller with a capacity of 2,453, but it definitely has its own niche," said Dana Dyksterhuis, public relations manager for several Omaha venues.
It's been more than a year since "Fair & Square" was released, but with a man so devoted to family and home life, Prine is slowly getting the songs out.
"When I got home," Kooser said about his return from the Library of Congress event, "I felt like being on stage with Prine was like being in the presence (of) a large chunk of the people that had been drifting a number of years."
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