Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
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Free Music Notes for American V: A Hundred Highways
Free Music Review: The Album To Beat Thus Far for Best of 2006
Hit: 5 Stars
CD Review: Johnny Cash - American V - A Hundred Highways
When I was kid growing up in the sixties and seventies I was never much into Johnny Cash. Like most thirteen year olds at the time, my musical taste ran more towards the noisemakers of the day like Led Zeppelin and Grand Funk Railroad, with maybe a side dish of Beatles and Dylan as a reminder of the value of good songwriting.
So like most of my friends, I mentally filed Johnny Cash and his "Boy Named Sue" nonsense somewhere in between the country crap my Dad listened to (guys like Glen Campbell), and novelty artists like Tiny Tim or Ray Stevens. Years later of course, as both my tastes began to change and I grew up a little, I developed a healthy respect for The Man In Black as the American Icon he is.
You had to stand back in just a little awe at the man's voice for starters. There is nothing that quite matches it's deep resonance in all of music. The other thing about Cash though is simply his songs. Not all of them are written by him of course, but even when the writer is someone else, Cash makes every song he sings uniquely his own. His songs evoke images of America--the good, the bad, and the ugly--in a way only a very select handful of singers can. Johnny Cash's powers as an interpeter of song are without equal.
I briefly worked at American Recordings in Los Angeles in the early nineties, and was fortunate enough to have been in on the early marketing plans for the first of what was to become The American Series. And over the course of my travels through the years, I've had occasion to meet hundreds of rock stars. I thought I was way past ever being starstruck meeting musicians.
But when Rick Rubin marched into my office one morning in 1993 and introduced me to Johnny Cash, I was speechless. What are you supposed to say when The Man In Black himself extends you his hand and says in that unmistakable voice, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." I was absolutely dumbstruck at the experience. It's a story I tell often over beers with my friends to this day.
In the twilight years of Cash's life, Rick Rubin assured that his legacy would be properly bookended by making the great series of American Recordings albums. In doing so, Cash was able to end his career on the same sort of artistic high note that he began it with those early Sun Records albums. For that all of America owes Rubin a debt of gratitude (and I say that about the guy who signed off on firing me from his company).
Cash's famously resonant voice has grown a little weaker as his life grew closer to a conclusion. But it's no less powerful here on what will presumably the final chapter in the American series, A Hundred Highways.
In going through and rediscovering the boxed set and five albums proper that comprise the American Recordings series, it has been Cash's interpetive powers which have most struck me as a listener.
On those albums, Cash has reinvented songs by everyone from Soundgarden to Bob Marley (Cash's take on Marley's "Redemption Song" is a revelation) to Neil Diamond. With each interpetation, Cash uniquely stamps them as his own.
But as that famously resonant voice has in recent years began to recede, most notably on his amazing version of Nine Inch Nails "Hurt," it has also taken on new life. Where there was once a apocalyptic preacher's quality to it, there is now an inescapable weariness. A sense of both longing and of an almost biblical sort of take on mortality.
A Hundred Highways is filled with all these types of themes. The weariness, the sense of desolation and longing, and especially the consciousness of the artist himself's own mortality. Cash's take on Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" (a song I never particularly cared for until now) is sung as almost a wistful prayer and as a reflection on what had to be an extraordinary life. There's some regret there, but there is also both resolve and resignation.
The same goes for the opening track, "Help Me".
In DJ Radiohead's review of this CD, he makes the point that Cash's voice has never sounded more broken or heartbroken than it does here. I wholly concur. But I would add that on this song, as with so many others here, that Johnny Cash, fully aware of his own mortality, and impending meeting with his maker seems to be making peace with that in an almost prayer-like way. His voice creaks with resigned emotion here. It is the resigned voice of a man whose deep Christian faith framed him as a human being every bit as much so as did the wild, often hard life he lived as a younger man.
Cash is not just aware of his mortality on these songs. He is also clearly looking to the hereafter.
Cash likewise turns Bruce Springsteen's rocking road song, "Further On Up The Road" from The Rising into another of this album's numerous lamentations on life and death. The musical arrangement of this song, with it's quietly strummed minor chords and occasional Dylanesque organ sweep, in particular compliments the sentiment here. An otherwise fairly minor track from the great Springsteen, here it becomes a statement that is both eerie and poetic at the same time. It's both tearjerker sad and remarkably beautiful. As with all these songs, Cash's interpetation opens up entirely new meaning than you may have heard in the version by the original artist.
On the other side of reflection of course comes redemption. In "God's Gonna Cut You Down," Cash delivers a fire and brimstone sermon on accountability which implores the listener on the wages of sin "that as sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light." He goes on to tell "the rambler, the gambler, and the back biter that sooner or later God's gonna cut you down."
If in the Christian faith Cash believed so deeply in, it's true there is sure redemption for the righteous following judgment (as the good book says), I suspect Johnny Cash and his beloved June are enjoying quite a reunion right about now.
This is without a doubt one of the saddest records I've ever listened to. If you cry at certain movies, you may need a hanky or two to listen to A Hundred Highways.
It is also remarkably poignant and beautiful, and a fitting final chapter to one of the greatest stories in music history.
As of this writing, it's the record to beat for Best Album of 2006.
Free Music Review: Walk (to the end of) The Line
Hit: 5 Stars
Many performers, and quite a few artists as well, might have recoiled from the idea of recording an album during what they were all to aware of were their final months. For Johnny Cash the choice to make this album was in total synch with much of his public life. Throughout the 1960s when drugs and demons kept a dark cold hand on him and a long shadow over him, Cash turned out ground breaking album after ground breaking album, any one of which could have been his last. Remembering those years I'm reminded of the quote from Merle Haggard's first attempt at biography where Hag recalled his experience meeting Cash backstage in the early 1960's. Hag recalled his impression watching Cash stalk the stage, in total command of his sound and his audience, then seeing him shaking, scarcrow shallow, and trying to score his next fix in the men's room. Hag wrote of coming away with the sense that John Cash would change the face of American music . . . provided he lived long enough to do it.
Cash more than lived long enough, but wrapped in his sound and his larger than life existance was the ever present challenge of keeping death and so much more from dragging him down. The victory for Cash, for his fans, and for music in general was that the end came when it did, after his work here was mostly done.
The song selection on American V is intriguing, both in terms of the songs Johnny Cash chose to spend his final months singing - and given the nature of the American recordings where more vocal tracks were recorded than found their way onto the CD, the choices made by Rick Rubin and John Carter Cash also factor in so far as the songs they wanted to have a part of what baring future archival releases will be thought of as his 'final album'
The performances are uniformally effective. Back in the day Johnny's destructive ways took their toll on more than a few live shows. Now the difficulty he sometimes had getting breath and vocal strength only add gravity and character. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the opening track, 'Help Me' He rebounds in power and hard earned wisdom in the second track, where he makes the old standard "God's Gonna Cut You Down" his own in much the same way that he did with 'Hurt' or American IV.
From there each track is loaded with meaning. It depends in large part on the individual listener and context which songs penetrate most deeply. I find it telling about Johnny's reach that several reviewers here have spoken of Johnny covering 'Four Strong Winds' and referring to it as a Neil Young song. The song was actually penned by Canadian Ian Tyson back in the 1960's and first recorded by Ian and Sylvia. Mr. Young was just one of many singers who'd recorded it since. While my favorite version remains the one Ian recorded solo for his 1989 CD "I Outgrew the Wagon", Johnny's cover is to my ear the most transformative. Much the same can be said for the new meaning he gives Canadian Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind".
Johnny has been covering Bruce Springsteen since 1983 when he plucked a pair of songs, 'Johnny 99' and 'Highway Patrolman' off Bruce's stark and accustic 'Nebraska' album. (Using the former as the title track for a strong CD which saw little commerical attention, coming as it did during the early 1980's when the Nashville establishment did its damndest to put Johnny out to pasture so that we could be treated to more Eddie Rabbit). At the time Johnny's more crafted and fuller versions gave the songs depth that to some ears they'd been denied by the raggedness of Bruce's recordings. On this CD the effect is somewhat different, Johnny's paring down of 'Further on up the Road' gives the song an intenisty that the origional lacked.
Also interesting is the presence of the last song Johnny wrote 'Like the 309' which is a contemplation of his coming fate and the Hank Williams cover 'On the Evening Train'. While Johnny's influence across the vast scope of American music exceeds Hank's, the two men rank together at the top of post 1950 Country Music. Hank burned up and out in his 20's and did the dying young thing (age 29 - probably the oldest looking 29 yr old I ever saw ) that Johnny narrowly avoided. At the time of his death, drunk and sick in the back seat of a Cadillac somewhere in West Virginia Hank's most recent single had been the foreboding "I'll Never get out of This World Alive" In many ways, allowing for the differences between 1953 and 2003, as well as the differences in song writing style between Hank and Johnny, 'Like the 309' calls Hank's parting effort to mind.
As for the Hank penned song Johnny covered, I'm not familiar with the origional, but it sounds more like something that would have been issued under Hank's 'Luke the Drifter' alter ego. Many today forget that there were two Hanks, the one who lived in and cronicaled the world of beer joints, cheatin women and lonesom broken hearts, and the Luke character, morose and morbid who walked weary and wise through a world of funerals, deathbed old mothers and careworn Christian caution, sending pictures from life's other side in the hope that someone would head his words even though Hank himself never could. Back in the day the marketing boys thought Hank's hard living commercial success would be blunted if his cautionary and worried Luke songs were released under his name, hence Luke The Drifter was slapped on labels as a way of telling Hank's core audience 'no fast living here, but don't worry, ol Hank will be back drunker than ever next month'.
With Johnny there has never been the partitioning, diverse themes and songs coexist on all of his best albums and that element of the man was summed up quite well by daughter Roseanne in her 1984 song 'My Old Man', "He believes what he says he believes, but that don't make him a saint".
I hear the echos of that song a lot as I listen to this CD . . .remembering other lines "The old man's lonesome tonight / and he just wants to go home / and all the fools who stand in his way / why wont they leave him alone"
Kris Krisstofferson wrote a song about Johnny too . . .spoke of 'taking every wrong direction on that lonely way back home' Looking over Johnny Cash's life and journeys, 100 highways is an understatement, tired and weary from it all he's offered up a memorable fairwell before leaving us for that final trip home.
Free Music Review: Johnny's Gifts To Us Continue...
Hit: 5 Stars
Few artists in American music have been as original as Johnny Cash was. Few artists in American music have been as brutally honest as Johnny Cash was. This album represents both of those facets to the extreme. American V may be the best of the series produced by Rick Rubin. It shows a man at his most vulnerable physically but still in love with the art that propelled him through his many ups and downs in life. This album confronts death with a nudge and a wink as if to say, "I know your there my sickle bearing old friend but I'm going to keep rowing this boat until the end." At least that's what I imagine Johnny saying with this powerful round of songs. It on one hand forces one to think of their own life while on the other rejoice in the power to simply sustain. Johnny was lucky to have spent his remaining years producing the kind of music he wanted to and we have all been richly rewarded with five (soon to be six) albums that simultaneously celebrate the man and his life and serve as a reminder to us all that truly great artists have more to give than they may ever have the life span to produce.
The album starts off with the touching Help Me. It's hard to hear Johnny sound so frail but at the same time the song successfully resonates his pain and gives a hint at the overall theme of the album. God's Gonna Cut You Down might just be the best song ever recorded in the years he worked with Rick Rubin. It nullifies, in my opinion, the arguments that Johnny not being present to approve of the musical arrangements was some sort of unethical act on the part of Rubin and the other musicians. The instrumentation on this song is perfect and adds power to the words and message being conveyed. In fact, I can't fault anyone associated with this release with regards to the arrangements. Johnny was richly rewarded by his association with Rubin and together they struck a friendship and trust that endured till the end. I don't think many producers would have given of their time so freely as Rubin did and I think Johnny recorded the vocals realising someone would have to add the final touches. Johnny recorded these songs to be heard and I highly doubt he would have wanted them to be released without music to back them up. Frankly I find that whole argument to be ridiculous.
Like The 309 was his last song but it amazes me how this song resembles his early works. You can imagine what it would have sounded like in his youth with his original band. It's a true Cash original and brings to mind a form of American songwriting we will never see again, especially with the utter trash that modern Country artists are producing now. Next comes If You Could Read My Mind, a Gordon Lightfoot original, that in many ways stays true to the original feel of the song. Johnny's covers always managed to bring out the true nature of what the songs really were. I had always thougt NIN's version of Hurt was pretty good, but when I heard Johnny cover it I was even more impressed by it. It amazes me how much over production can sometimes mask the great song that has been written. While nothing should be taken away from Lightfoot's version, it was great, however, Johnny's version could sit on the same bookshelf with it quite easily.
The rest of the songs on this album continue to flow easily and two more standouts include Love's Been Good To Me and A Legend In My Time. Both are necessary because they serve to break up a little of the sadness present on this album with a bit of humor. I don't think Johnny meant for this album to be a reflection of life in general since he recorded many songs in succession but Rubin's selection of material for inclusion on this album helped make it seem that way. I feel like I will always cherish this album just as I know Cash cherished recording it. I don't know if any other album that comes out this year will be as amazing and I know for sure none will be as personal. Thank you Johnny for this gift, and thank you Rick Rubin for wrapping this gift up so beautifully.
Free Music Review: A Work of Sublime Beauty
Hit: 5 Stars
These songs were recorded while Johnny Cash was wheelchair-bound, nearly blind, asthmatic, diabetic, in constant pain and grieving the death of his soulmate and love of his life June Carter Cash, whom he would join mere weeks after the last of these tracks was recorded. Despite all that, he managed, through sheer force of will, to create an album of honesty and beauty that will stay with you long after the last note fades.
The album opens with a straightfoward appeal for help. "Oh Lord, help me to walk another mile, just one more mile" he sings on "Help Me", a hauntingly beautiful song that is neither maudlin nor overly sentimental. This is followed by what the sequencing seems to suggest is God's answer to that humble plea, the slashing, foot-stomping "God's Gonna Cut You Down". Cash seems to relish the role of the avenging hand and sings this one with gusto.
"Like the 309", the last song Cash wrote and recorded, has him returning to the "train song" motif that has been a lifeblood of his music. Cash stares down "Dr. Death" with a wink, a sly grin and a clear-eyed view of his own mortality. "Tell me all about it, what I did wrong/Meanwhile, I will be doin' fine/Then load my box on the 309".
Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind", a staple of light-pop radio, is transformed by Cash from a pleasantly hummable song about a romantic breakup into a harrowing trip into a dark night of the soul. Cash's voice is at its weakest here as he struggles for breath and pitch but that only serves to make the effect greater. Lyrics that seemed throwaway in the original seem weighted with years of regret and pain when sung by Cash. His voice breaks and nearly disappears while singing "The feeling's gone/And I just can't get it back" and "If you read between the lines/You'll know that I'm just trying to understand".
Cash takes Bruce Springsteen's "Further On Up the Road" from "The Rising" and turns it into the song it was always meant to be. What was a hard-driving rock song when done by Springsteen becomes, in Cash's hands, an instantly classic folk song that sounds like it was handed down through the years. The melody is allowed to breathe, the lyrics are clear and beautiful and the song becomes a meditation on life, faith and redemption. "If there's a light up ahead/well, brother, I don't know/But I'll meet you further on up the road".
The specter of June Carter Cash hovers over many songs on the album, notably "On the Evening Train" (the Hank Williams song about a widower sending off his wife's casket at the depot), "Love's Been Good to Me" and "Rose of My Heart" ("We're the best partners this world's ever seen... You are the rose of my heart/You are the love of my life" ). "Four Strong Winds", with its lyrics "Now our good times are all gone/And I'm bound for moving on" takes on a different meaning altogether from its original "good love gone bad" connotation.
The album closes with "I'm Free From the Chain Gang Now", a song Cash originally recorded in 1962. Back then, in the hands of a young man, the song was simply about a prisoner released from his shackles. Now, as recorded by an old man with his soulmate gone, his health gone and his best days behind him, the song is about freedom from earthly bonds. I don't think it's a coincidence that Cash's voice sounds strongest on this track. When he sings "I got rid of the shackles that bound me" he sounds like a man who has made peace with his past and is looking forward to moving on to the next station. On September 12, 2003 Johnny Cash was freed from his earthly shackles but, to our great benefit, he had the strength and talent to leave behind some sublime beauty for the rest of us. I love you, John. I'll meet you further on up the road.
Free Music Review: Super Sweet, Quiet, Goodbye from an American Great--Johnny Cash!
Hit: 5 Stars
Johnny Cash's last recorded album before his death is a really beautiful, quiet, contemplative sendoff from this great American musician and man! I love listening to this album.
AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS is a very enjoyable listening experience for any fan of Johnny Cash, and it is made even more of an important musical milestone in his career since it is his last album that he recorded before his death--and it's so darn good, for all that, too!
Sometimes his voice sounds weaker, and the liner notes talk about his failing health during the recording of this album, but if you are a Johnny Cash fan of any depth, you will find it even more sentimental to hear Johnny keep on singing and playing--keep on fighting right on to the end of his life. To such a large extent, his life was about music, and on this album he is pushing to live through his music, on his last album.
The most interesting song is probably "Like the 309," which is the last song that Johnny wrote himself, and it's another one of his train songs, and it's a great one! "It should be a while before I see Dr. Death / so it would sure be nice if I could get my breath / well I'm not the crying nor the whining kind / Til I hear the whistle of the 309." This song's lyrics sounds like Johnny having a last laugh on his own mortality.
My favorite song is "God's Gonna Cut You Down," which is a traditional song that warns all sinners to repent or FACE THE INEVITABLE JUDGMENT OF GOD! "I Came To Believe" is another Gospel song, this one written by Johnny, and it is one of the best songs on this album.
Johnny sings an old Hank Williams song, "On the Evening Train," which is excellent, and Johnny also does a version of Larry Gatlin's "Help Me," originally appearing in Larry's performance in Johnny Cash's great movie, THE GOSPEL ROAD, (a Johnny Cash self-produced movie which tells the story of Jesus and is available from amazon.com, and recommended by me).
Johnny also does a Bruce Springsteen song, "Further on Up the Road," which is very good, and he does a famous Gordon Lightfoot tune from the 70s, "If You Could Read My Mind," which is also very good.
This album has 12 songs in about 43 minutes. The whole album is great to listen to, for a quiet mood, in memory of Johnny Cash, who was a great milestone of American music!
I thought I could compare this album to his first album with American Records, which was just Johnny and his guitar; a big hit, career comeback at the height of the MTV Unplugged era. But, technically, AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS is NOT just Johnny and his guitar (although it is pretty darn close to that musical arrangement). I like it better than that first American Records album from 1994. AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS has more sentimental value.
Rick Rubin did a GREAT job of tastefully and only slightly enhancing Johnny and his guitar with just enough additional extra musicians and instruments to season everything nicely, but not to bury the basic foundation of Johnny's voice and guitar.
The CD booklet only has one photo of Johnny, on the cover, and the inside has some interesting comments from producer Rick Rubin, about the time during the recording session for this album, and his friendship with Johnny.
You will probably like this CD in direct proportion to how much of a Johnny Cash fan you consider yourself to be. This CD is a must-have for any serious Johnny Cash fan!