Listen to the John Prine interview

John Prine is right where he wants to be – and no, that doesn’t mean the airport in Edmonton, Alberta, where he’s calling from. Rather, he’s at the stage in life where everything is just so.

Some 26 years after his first album of American folk music, Prine has loyal fans, a successful career, an independent record company that enables him to keep more of the money he earns, a new wife and two young sons ages 2 1/2 and 1 1/2.

The 50-year-old singer-songwriter is even making plans for an album he’s always wanted to do, one that will feature him singing duets of classic country songs with female guest artists. (“Some of them will be cheating songs, some will be love songs, ’cause you can’t have cheating without love,” he wisecracks.)

“Tell you the truth,” Prine says, sounding practically giddy, “things couldn’t be better. I’m having a great time, I have a great home life now, I’m enjoying the shows and everything’s just fine.”

As he sings on Humidity Built the Snowman: “The scientific nature of the ordinary man is to go on out and do the best you can.”

Seems like Prine, whose tour stops at the Starlight Summerstage on Saturday on a double bill with Los Lobos, has done precisely that. Take his record company, Oh Boy. About 15 years ago, Prine tired of the record business. He has no horror stories to tell about being ripped off or getting into legal skirmishes.

“I just come from a working-class background and I couldn’t see a reason to work for Warner Brothers,” he says. “What could they do for me? Nothing – except spend my money before I make it. It didn’t make sense to me.”

So he and a couple of partners started Oh Boy. Now Prine gets royalties of around $5 to $6 for every disc he sells, compared with major-label artists who receive half that amount. Or less.

Maybe Prine could sell more discs with a major label. But maybe not. Combined, his two most recent studio recordings, The Missing Years and Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, have sold more than 750,000 copies – extremely respectable numbers.

(His latest disc is Live on Tour, which features Indiana guitarists Larry Crane and Jason Wilbur. Wilbur is still in Prine’s band; Crane isn’t.) Dylan-esque

Prine started his career tagged as “the next Bob Dylan.” But he says he’s never been the kind of artist who worried much about fame, gigantic paydays or headlining the Enormo-Dome. Theaters with 5,000 or fewer seats are just fine, and small halls that seat 800 or 900 are even better.

“All I ever wanted to do,” he says, “was work things around to pretty much where they’re at today – going out and enjoying being there and enjoying doing the show and enjoying the crowd and having a personal life that equaled that. That, and no bills. I can’t think of what else I could have. The cars all look like (expletive), so I don’t want to buy a car. What else do I need?”

Why he’s the way he is

That kind of simplicity has always been a cornerstone in Prine’s songs. Whether he’s singing about Vietnam veteran Sam Stone or doling out advice as Dear Abby (“you have no complaint/you are what you are/and you ain’t what you ain’t”), his lyrics are straightforward.

There are three reasons for this. “If a song seems to be saying anything,” he says, “it usually springs out of me trying to explain something to myself. I guess I must like things in fairly simple terms.

“Also, the subject matter is not something you want to make a big, flowery speech about. You want to cut to the heart of the matter and get it over with.

“And my third answer to that question is, I don’t know. I don’t know any more about writing today than I did when I picked up a pencil-like 25 years ago. It’s just something that comes and goes.

“It’s an interesting way to live your life. You just walk around and think about stuff – stuff that amuses you or interests you or just gets a hold of you. And you go for it. Then when you sing it to people and they react the way you did when you first got this emotion, that’s an amazing process.”