Johnny Cash - Complete Live at San Quentin
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Free Music Notes for Complete Live at San Quentin
Free Music Review: Oh my God....
Hit: 5 Stars
After dealing with the lousy sounding, edited, bleeped CD issue that's been available for the last 12 years or so, this is a total god-send. The mastering is immaculate, and it even sounds better than the old LP. Most importantly, the concert is here in its complete form. The best thing about this album is the fact that it reminds us that live albums don't have to be superflous... this one is absolutely essential. The songs, while familiar take on a unique character, not just of time but of place... there is a tension and energy evident. This recording places you in the prison mess hall. Sure, the venue is an acoustic nightmare, but those columbia engineers really knew what they were doing... it doesn't sound like carnegie hall, and it's not supposed to. This new remaster extracts all the ambient detail you need to "hear the room" on good audio gear. The instruments are correctly placed across the generous soundstage, and there is a real sense of the air around them. Cash's every phrasing nuance, cough, breath and chuckle is here. I know I'm making too much of the sound quality, but it really is essential to understanding how the listener can become totally involved in the record... it's not one to put on for one song. Sit in the sweet spot, start from the begining and just *listen*. Having the complete concert, patter, jokes and all gives it a certain dramatic tension... it's not just about the songs.
The back-to-back rips through "San Quentin" remain the highlights (with Johnny asking a gaurd "if any of them are still speaking to me" for a glass of water between takes)Sure, perhaps the 20th century may have produced *better* singers but none, and I mean none, were *braver* than the original man in black.
Your record collection and your life in general is imcomplete without this CD. Even if you have the old two-fer with this and "Folsom", spring for the new issue, and the new issue of "Folsom" as well... you can get them for under 10 bucks each, and that is probably the best thing you can do with 20 bucks these days... If you are new to Cash, skip the greatest hits for now and dive in with this disc... hearing the songs in this primal form and tense context will give you a better idea of the life-and-death nature of Cash's singing.
Free Music Review: A legendary album is now twice as great with bonus tracks
Hit: 5 Stars
The 1969 live album "At San Quentin" is unquestionably the definitive recording of Johnny Cash during his "wild" years, although I have to admit a personal preference for the songs and performances captured the year before on "At Folsom Prison." That album had made Cash a recognizable star even to people who did not listen to Country music and "At San Quentin" catapulted him to the highest level as a recording artist. What remains constant is Cash's ability to feed off of his captive audience. When he plays to these prisoners you do not doubt for a second that he is one of them, a larger than life outlaw, even though the only time he spent behind bars was in a drunk tank. Cash is clearly on the edge as he rips his way through jailhouse ballads ("Starkville City Jail," "San Quentin"), rockabilly songs ("Big River"), and old hits ("I Walk the Line," "Ring of Fire"). But it is when Cash sings "A Boy Named Sue," a song written by Shel Silverstein, that he shows his absolutely mastery (the rest of us were just shocked by a hit record with a "bleep" on it). This was a legendary album for decades and now this 2000 reissue literally doubles its length, from nine to eighteen tracks providing, as the cover proudly proclaims, the complete February 1969 concert. One of the "new" tracks is the other hit single that came off the album, "Daddy Sang Bass." But it is still totally amazing that you can take a definitive album by a major figure in modern American music and make it twice as long (imagine that being the case with any other great album from "Sgt. Pepper" to "Nevermind"; it blows your mind). There are a handful of albums that you should be checking out, if you do not already own them, to appreciate the Man in Black and his music and "At San Quentin" has to be one of the fingers you would tick off on the first hand you used. Johnny Cash, with his resonant baritone and distinctive sound, was one of the most imposing figures in country music in our lifetime and it is nice to know that when he died this past week that he was appreciated by even the most recent generation of music lovers.
Free Music Review: My dilemma...which is better, this or Live at Folsom?
Hit: 5 Stars
When I was a kid, I bought a special "two-fer" double LP that contained both LIVE AT SAN QUENTIN and LIVE AT FOLSOM PRISON and I always listened to them as companion pieces. Both crackle with incredible energy, raw and passionate performances, stellar singing and playing, and a tangible sense of danger.
To separate these two albums and try to choose a favorite between them is virtually impossible for me. Let's just say that both the FOLSOM and SAN QUENTIN recordings on CD are indespensible for me...definite "desert island discs." There's nothing stale or formulaic about the SAN QUENTIN, though it comes hard on the heels of the success of FOLSOM. It still sounds fresh and feral, as Johnny races through moments both sacred and profane.
As with FOLSOM, Johnny has incredible rapport with his "captive audience" who were actually anything but--as they listened to Johnny for those few fleeting moments, these prisoners were free indeed. Johnny wasn't going to do anything "by the book" just to satisfy the suits...proof of that is ample but most clearly illustrated when he immediately, deliberately, and gleefully reprises the snarling, intense title track after singing it through once.
Johnny sings many of his own standards and other well-known chestnuts as though he was performing them for the first time, with freshness and vitality. Of course, "Boy Named Sue" WAS being performed for the first time and it remains a hoot, even after all these repeated listenings 37 years later. And don't miss the great Gospel medley at the end, which is totally heartfelt and sincere...and fun. No maudlin sentimentality here; just an alive appreciation for the truth and comfort of the words and the significance of their context.
The packaging and liner notes here are tremendous. Overall, this is a stellar presentation that is not to be missed by any Johnny Cash fan or anyone interested in the core history of country, rock, Gospel, folk, rockabilly, and 20th Century American music.
Free Music Review: The Rough-Cut King of Country Music at His Best!
Hit: 5 Stars
Pay no attention to whatever critic asserted that this album should have "remained in solitary." The LP version was my first Johnny Cash album; I've since collected them all, but this new CD takes first place. What a show!Cash purists who've seen the Granada TV special made in conjunction with the album know that this CD is neither "complete" nor "uncensored." At least two songs are missing: "Orange Blossom Special" and "Jackson." (At three different places on the disc you can hear convicts calling out the latter title; rest assured Cash and his wife did oblige them.) An off-color remark Cash made to a TV cameraman at the close of "I Walk the Line" has been trimmed. Also, unlike last year's "At Folsom Prison" reissue, the selections here are not in original running order. But knowing this diminishes neither the importance of what IS here, nor the CD's enjoyment factor.
This album marked the debut of lead guitarist Bob Wootten, who'd replaced the late Luther Perkins, originator of Cash's "boom-chicka-boom" backing. Wootten was never hotter than during his first year with the troupe, and his double-timed licks add to the sense of wild urgency that permeates the concert. And vintage rock-n-roll fans need to get this album if only to hear Carl Perkins. In addition to his licks on John Sebastian's "Darling Companion" and the classic "A Boy Named Sue," Perkins takes a verse of "The Old Account" and displays the kind of southern-black vocal soul that shows up Elvis for the pretender he was. Eric Clapton, among others, knew that Perkins was the real deal; the one verse here proves it.
But the main event is Cash. Rough-hewn, raw, unencumbered by neither the drugs of earlier years nor the sense of religious responsibility to come, this is the Man in Black's finest hour of the most successful year of his career. It is THE Cash album to own.
Free Music Review: Brilliant bookend with the Folsom Prison re-release
Hit: 5 Stars
This here Amazon thingy is starting to produce some cool experiences. I had found out about the "Folsom Prison" release from the Columbia Record Club. When I got that and reviewed it, the engine that dumps related items in your face notified me that there was a similar re-release of "San Quentin". So after vowing not to be suckered into buying stuff out of here, I gladly plunked down money for this, as well as three other purchases this month.And what a re-release it is! This was one of the first record albums I ever owned. While I liked it a lot, it always seemed that it was awfully short for a live album. Well, this version makes up for it by throwing in NINE numbers not on the orginal release. It also throws in more patter with the audience, and surprises on top of surprises, we don't hear them bleeping out naughty words in both the song and the patter.
The songs are also in a drastically different order than the original. Whether or not this is still the actual order of performance, I don't know. I do know that "Wanted Man" opened the original, and here it's track 10. This is not that important. What is is the narrative before the song saying that Bob Dylan and he had just written it. If that's true, then we get fairly new versions of that, "San Quentin", and "A Boy Named Sue". Which means that this wasn't an oldies package thrown together for a performance. It was a concentrated effort to bring new material to the public for this event.
And unlike the four additions to the "Folsom" re-rerelease, which were OK but not special, the nine extra ones here really contribute something. While I miss the horns from "Ring of Fire" (and wonder what they used here that sounds like ducks singing), the rest really flesh out the entire performance. Yes, we heard "Folsom Prison Blues" on "Folsom", but if that song doesn't also belong on a live "San Quentin" album, what would?
All together a great re-issue of a great artist at his commercial peak.