John Prine - Pink Cadillac (1979)

John Prine went to Sam Phillips' studio in Memphis to make his sixth album, Pink Cadillac, and got some of the Sun Records sound of 1950s rockabilly on a record produced by Phillips' sons Knox and Jerry. (Sam produced two of the tracks himself.) Slapback bass here, a Bo Diddley beat there, and an overall loose feel characterized music that may have been more fun to make than it is to listen to, even though it's quite entertaining. Prine wrote only five of the ten songs, however, and even though the covers were of high caliber -- notably Roly Salley's "Killing the Blues" and Arthur Gunter's "Baby Let's Play House," a song Elvis Presley did at Sun -- Pink Cadillac was a good idea that went slightly awry in the execution. If Prine had had the songs as well as the studio, it would have been among his best.