Goodbye, Johnny
07/20/2006 10:00 Filed in: Music
A Guest Review by Andrew Wells
[RICK'S NOTE: At the risk of overly-commercializing Andrew's review of Johhny Cash's music, I thought it would be helpful to provide direction to those who would want to obtain the music discussed here. All text links will direct you to the iTunes Music Store and if you prefer physical CDs, obviously all graphical links go to Amazon.com.]
I suspect that in the later years of his life--no matter how much he was re-discovered and declared "cool"--it must have been hard being Johnny Cash. Cash was the last living link to a type of country music that existed long before Nashville or even Hank Williams, back all the way to the Carter family and the 1800s, the last musical giant to walk the land. He carried the torch till the end, knowing that he had influenced many musicians, yet probably realizing a great deal of the past was going to die with him.
Even if it was a Nine Inch Nails cover, his last single "Hurt" from American IV: The Man Comes Around would have been a beautiful final statement. With all that he accomplished in life, all he had seen and done, "Every one I know goes away in the end." It is the loss of family and friends that mark his days. The music video is probably one of the most moving ever created, cutting back and forth between pictures of Johnny Cash in all the stages of his life and video of him as an old man among his memories. It would have been a perfect ending to Cash’s career.
Would have. Rick Rubin, Cash's producer, should have waited a lot longer to release American V: A Hundred Highways--or maybe not at all.
It's not that it is bad. Cash really seemed to relish stripping his style bare, and that comes through here. But none of the songs really have the punch of "Hurt," yet the whole album is an extension of that one song. Whether doing covers of originals, directly or indirectly, the theme of every song becomes death. Several seem to have been selected with his wife, June Carter Cash in mind (she passed away four months before he did). As a statement and as a historical document--Cash sings several traditional tunes--it has real value. As an album, though, it’s really hard to listen to.
Rubin states in the liner notes that eventually he will release a boxed set of Cash’s material called Unearthed. In the last months of his life, Cash was recording as much as he was physically able to, singing songs that had been passed down to him or had been well-known in his childhood. If Rubin had been wise, he would have added this last album to the set, instead of releasing it separately. American V doesn’t tarnish Cash’s career at all; it just doesn’t provide the closure like it should--like "Hurt" does.
After Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash's material seems to be on every recording label possible. There must be dozens of "greatest hits" CDs alone. The problem is that, as with Presley, you have to dig through a lot of Cash’s recordings to get to the real jewels, and his albums haven't all been reissued. Here are some recommendations if you are starting out, wanting to cover your bases or if you are just diving in:
For his earliest work, get The Sun Years which has all his important singles and several B-sides he made for Sun Records.
Cash jumped ship to Columbia Records (now Sony Music) when he couldn’t make the music he wanted. The absolute necessity from this time is Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. It covers several different types, shows Cash at his best, and is arguably the greatest live album ever. Pick up the "American Milestones" edition if possible, because it has the complete (and unedited--be warned) concert. Johnny Cash at San Quentin is also supposed to be quite good, though not quite in the same category.
For Cash’s religious side, seek out Hymns by Johnny Cash, the "American Milestones" edition. Shortly after he died, Rubin released My Mother’s Hymnbook, a collection of hymns done in Cash’s later style. It hasn’t received near the attention that this last album has received—I’ve mostly seen it in Christian bookstores—but worth a listen.
From his American Recordings era, the essential is American Recordings. Just strumming a guitar, Cash takes a bunch of songs from wildly different writers (Nick Lowe, Henry Rollins and Leonard Cohen, to name a few) and somehow melds them into a cohesive, beautiful whole. His follow-up, Unchained, finds Cash going back to his rock and country roots, with great success. The third and fourth American albums, while well-produced, are hit-and miss.
Until we are able to hear Unearthed, the gold standard for "previously unreleased material" seems to be Personal File, a collection of songs Cash recorded in the 70s and early 80s but for unknown reasons never released. Again, it's just him and his guitar, but that was what Johnny Cash was all about.
Andrew Wells can be reached at arwell012002@yahoo.com.
Even if it was a Nine Inch Nails cover, his last single "Hurt" from American IV: The Man Comes Around would have been a beautiful final statement. With all that he accomplished in life, all he had seen and done, "Every one I know goes away in the end." It is the loss of family and friends that mark his days. The music video is probably one of the most moving ever created, cutting back and forth between pictures of Johnny Cash in all the stages of his life and video of him as an old man among his memories. It would have been a perfect ending to Cash’s career.
Would have. Rick Rubin, Cash's producer, should have waited a lot longer to release American V: A Hundred Highways--or maybe not at all.
It's not that it is bad. Cash really seemed to relish stripping his style bare, and that comes through here. But none of the songs really have the punch of "Hurt," yet the whole album is an extension of that one song. Whether doing covers of originals, directly or indirectly, the theme of every song becomes death. Several seem to have been selected with his wife, June Carter Cash in mind (she passed away four months before he did). As a statement and as a historical document--Cash sings several traditional tunes--it has real value. As an album, though, it’s really hard to listen to.
Rubin states in the liner notes that eventually he will release a boxed set of Cash’s material called Unearthed. In the last months of his life, Cash was recording as much as he was physically able to, singing songs that had been passed down to him or had been well-known in his childhood. If Rubin had been wise, he would have added this last album to the set, instead of releasing it separately. American V doesn’t tarnish Cash’s career at all; it just doesn’t provide the closure like it should--like "Hurt" does.
After Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash's material seems to be on every recording label possible. There must be dozens of "greatest hits" CDs alone. The problem is that, as with Presley, you have to dig through a lot of Cash’s recordings to get to the real jewels, and his albums haven't all been reissued. Here are some recommendations if you are starting out, wanting to cover your bases or if you are just diving in:
For his earliest work, get The Sun Years which has all his important singles and several B-sides he made for Sun Records.
Cash jumped ship to Columbia Records (now Sony Music) when he couldn’t make the music he wanted. The absolute necessity from this time is Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. It covers several different types, shows Cash at his best, and is arguably the greatest live album ever. Pick up the "American Milestones" edition if possible, because it has the complete (and unedited--be warned) concert. Johnny Cash at San Quentin is also supposed to be quite good, though not quite in the same category.
For Cash’s religious side, seek out Hymns by Johnny Cash, the "American Milestones" edition. Shortly after he died, Rubin released My Mother’s Hymnbook, a collection of hymns done in Cash’s later style. It hasn’t received near the attention that this last album has received—I’ve mostly seen it in Christian bookstores—but worth a listen.
From his American Recordings era, the essential is American Recordings. Just strumming a guitar, Cash takes a bunch of songs from wildly different writers (Nick Lowe, Henry Rollins and Leonard Cohen, to name a few) and somehow melds them into a cohesive, beautiful whole. His follow-up, Unchained, finds Cash going back to his rock and country roots, with great success. The third and fourth American albums, while well-produced, are hit-and miss.
Until we are able to hear Unearthed, the gold standard for "previously unreleased material" seems to be Personal File, a collection of songs Cash recorded in the 70s and early 80s but for unknown reasons never released. Again, it's just him and his guitar, but that was what Johnny Cash was all about.
Andrew Wells can be reached at arwell012002@yahoo.com.