Sad news, singer songwriter John Prine dies of coronavirus complications, April 7, 2020. This Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, the country folk legend who inspired Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson, died Tuesday in Nashville from complications of the COVID-19 coronavirus, his family said. He was 73 years old. Prine, a two-time cancer survivor, was hospitalized in March after testing positive for the virus, and was put on a ventilator. Prine got his start in music singing at open-mic nights while working as a mailman in Illinois. In 1970, Roger Ebert caught one of his performances and gave him a rave review in the Chicago Sun-Times. Prine credited Ebert with getting his music career going, and he went on to release a dozen albums over five decades.