Standard Songs for Average People is a duet album of covers by John Prine and Mac Wiseman, released by Oh Boy Records (OBR 038) on 24 April 2007. It was recorded in 2006 at the Butcher Shop in Nashville and produced by Prine and David Ferguson. Wiseman, born in Crimora, Virginia, in 1925, had been the guitarist in Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’s Foggy Mountain Boys after they left Bill Monroe’s band.
Prine and Wiseman both play guitar and sing. The credits list Pat McLaughlin (guitar, mandolin and baritone guitar), Tim O’Brien (banjo and guitar), Ronnie McCoury (mandolin), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Jack Clement (Dobro), Lloyd Green (pedal steel), Joey Miskulin (accordion) and Mike Bub (bass), with Jamie Hartford on electric guitar and Kenneth Blevins and Kenny Malone on drums.
The songs come from several corners of country music: Ernest Tubb’s “Blue Eyed Elaine,” Al Dexter’s “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” Tom T. Hall’s “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine,” Kris Kristofferson’s “Just the Other Side of Nowhere,” two by Leon Payne, and the Floyd Collins ballad “Death of Floyd Collins.” Two hymns, “In the Garden” and “Old Rugged Cross,” are included as well, the latter credited as arranged by Prine. The album reached number 37 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart.
Tracklist
- 1 Blue Eyed Elaine 2:35
- 2 Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age 2:26
- 3 I Forgot to Remember to Forget 3:02
- 4 I Love You Because 4:22
- 5 Pistol Packin' Mama 2:44
- 6 Saginaw Michigan 2:55
- 7 Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine 4:37
- 8 Old Cape Cod 2:26
- 9 Death of Floyd Collins 3:25
- 10 The Blue Side of Lonesome 4:09
- 11 In the Garden 3:09
- 12 Just the Other Side of Nowhere 2:36
- 13 Old Rugged Cross alt version 3:31
- 14 Where the Blue of the Night 3:01
