Johnny Cash - American V: A Hundred Highways
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Free Music Notes for American V: A Hundred Highways
Free Music Review: stunning americana music.
Hit: 5 Stars
of all the inept scribblings that i've done on amazon, i find that it's hardest for me to write about the music that is most special to me. words won't do. they can't really capture the magic in the music. it's a different language. but let me start off with this: if you listen to this album, and don't like it; then i don't trust you. don't trust you in the way that i wouldn't trust somebody who dislikes dogs. this is stunning americana music. towards the end of his life johnny cash was our great interpreter of american song. that voice! all of life's experience seemed gathered there in his breathe. i will compare this album to another one, and it may sound whacky, but here it goes: this reminds me of coleman hawkins' last album "sirius." i know. i know. the comparison seems off the wall. johnny cash and a jazz saxophone player? but here's the thing: both these albums were their last recordings, and both men were suffering from failing health. these were once powerful performers now weakened by age. you could hear it in mr hawkins' playing, and ditto in mr cash's voice. but, oh the spirit, and oh the experience. the way with nuance. on both of these albums we get performances filled with a love for craft, a love for music. on "american v: a hundred highways," johnny cash gave me jewels to listen to for a lifetime, as he did throughout his association with rick rubin. and let's not neglect to praise mr rubin. has anybody ever made an acoustic guitar sound so pretty on a recording? the studio know-how, the genius of getting the very greatest out of a performer, and then making that performance into some wonderous piece of art, were all achieved gloriously by rick rubin here (as on all his cash recordings). i now fantasize about a studio match-up of mr rubin and billy joe shaver. but that's for another time. enough said. thanks johnny cash. thanks rick rubin.Free Music Review: If You Could Read My Mind
Hit: 5 Stars
I do a good job of moving on. Of losing interest in old emotions. Getting bored with them. Having new life experiences, friends and joys put down sediment, in layers, wistfully burying the old dinosaur bones - bones that were once called into action by a vibrant owner endowed with an elan vital. Now the bones are encapsulated in an oubliette - an oubliette created by the desire to forget, or by the imperceptible sensation that these memories are no longer relevant, no longer a part of the ego now in existence. Memories rendered innocuous by their very age. Memories that belonged to someone else, not I.
Until an artist arrives, able to lift those capsules from the depths of my mind, barely moving the surface.
It's been a while since a song made me cry. And it's been a fair while since I had anything to cry about. That makes it even more unexpected. But I've just acquired American V: A Hundred Highways. Released July 4th, 2006, this is the album upon which Johnny Cash had been working when he perished in the September of 2003. His wife had passed in the May of that year, ending 35 years of marriage. Johnny died on the day the final mix of Unearthed was completed.
The song is If You Could Read My Mind. I've heard it before; I know it's a cover. But, like an amusing anecdote, an inordinate amount of the song's affection is derived from the power of the artiste. And Johnny's rendition energised the forgotten melancholies of my mind, floating them gently to the surface. Not sorrowfully, but in recognition. It is good to feel again. To be alive. Johnny's voice, weak and vulnerable in the winter of his mesmeric fifty-year career, only serves to heighten the impact. I remember again.
If you get the opportunity, buy this CD and listen to this song. The lyrics may be reusable, but the performance is irreplaceable.
Free Music Review: Unforgettable
Hit: 5 Stars
It seems each person has there own personal story in how this album has affected them. I too have gotten all the American Recordings albums and Unearthed - it was actually Johnny singing on a U2 album that stirred my interest in him again.
Each of the American Recording albums has affected me profoundly, whether it was "Bury Me Not" on I, "One" on III, "Hurt" on IV, "He Stopped Loving Her Today" on Unearthed and the countless other emotional high and low points. His version of "Memories are Made of This" on II was our 1st dance at my wedding reception.
So as the other reviewers have mentioned, this is a testament to what Johnny was going through in the final months of his life, how music was keeping him alive to the end and you can feel it in each and every song.
To me, none affected me more than "Four String Winds". For understanding that this is a plea to join his wife soon is heartbreaking. He changed the line "If our good times are gone/Then I guess I'll be moving on" to "Well our good times are long gone/ So I'm bound for moving on" and is just rips your heart out.
I had no idea about that subtle change until I watched Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" and was surprised that it was on the playlist. Do yourself a favor and listen to Johnny's version, watch the Neil Young DVD version and then listen to Johnny's version again. I hope it gives you a much more profound emotional experience as it did me (though the song already moved me to tears the first time I heard it anyway!)
Like others I have been playing this album frequently since I got it. Rick did a great job in finding the perfect accompanient to Johnny's voice. In the end, the voice is all you hear.
Free Music Review: More than Music
Hit: 5 Stars
Umm... To lay down and listen to this album for the first time, without distraction, kids in bed... Part of what has made Johnny Cash's relationship with Rick Rubin so amazing is the transformation of other artist's work, popular or obscure. I have every piece of this collaboration so I knew what to expect. Depth, emotion and that voice. I have said for years that if Johnny Cash read the phone book on record, I would buy it. His is the voice of sorrow, suffering, life and redemption. I thought the Unearthed collection pulled this all together so well. And now there is American V.
This is not an album of music. It is a study of an incredible life lived of mistakes made, of remorse and triumph. Johnny's voice is so out front in the mix, frail, quivering, yet reaching for once last gasp of proof. Johnny Cash had to sing, no matter the circumstances. There is a feeling of private inclusion that is almost creepy, yet incredibly moving (trite, but words cannot describe it).
Through all of the American recordings, I felt a sense of closeness that grew with each release, through deft song selection and Johnny's take on each song. This album brought me to the end of his life. Right there, almost too close.
This is not a CD for a summer cruise with the top down, or for cranking while out on the deck having a beer and grilling up supper. In fact, I have not figured out where this will fit into my life, yet more so than any album, book or movie I can remember, this CD WILL fit in some place as a document and companion for some unforeseen occurance. Dedicate the time and space for your first listening, and be prepared to be shaken up a bit when it is over.
Free Music Review: Black night, bright light - his voice is not stilled, but is barrelin on to Eternity
Hit: 5 Stars
Whenever I've listened to Johnny Cash sing, his voice: tough, strong, plaintive, decisive, confessional -- made me want to walk down a lonely road at midnight, maybe swagger a bit, cut the dust with a beer, or sit quietly in a dim lit bar with friends of all persuasions and consciences, and let the night do the talking.
When I saw Johnny Cash at an Awards ceremony a year before he died, I was utterly devastated that this man in black - made of steel - now had a shock of white hair and could barely walk. But his soul shone clear and true, and walk he did, with the same deliberation that he muscled his songs with - to the podium, to receive his award amid thunderous ovation.
I hesitated to buy this CD, knowing it would be the last I'd hear him sing, but to honor his memory I did.
His voice, fading in, getting stronger, reminiscing, regretting - was an experience much more than aural -- it was seeing, with heart and soul -- a pre-dawn darkness along the tracks where the earth itself is releasing age old memories sacred to the whole human race, and in the distance, a tiny spot of light, growing bigger as a train, as dark as the night, slowly emerges from the horizon - its commanding whistle fading in and out of the rolls of darkness, while I'm frozen in an eternity, listening to a lifetime go by.
I ached when his voice grew dimmer, and my heart beat faster when he sang clearer and stronger. This is not just a CD -- it's a Communion.
Goodbye Johnny? No, Man in Black -- you're as close as a heartbeat and as forever strong as an Iron Horse cutting thru the secrets of the night, thundering past Folsom.