Country – Page 6 – Rock Salted

Johnny Cash – The Fabulous Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash – The Fabulous Johnny Cash Columbia CS 8122 (1959)

The Fabulous Johnny Cash was the Cash’s first full-length album for Columbia Records after leaving Sun Records in an abrupt and strained departure. He more or less picked up exactly where he left off at Sun. Every song is drenched in reverb. He mixes in a number of melodramatic love songs, which he had started doing in his final days recording for Sun. There also are more male backing vocals. But Columbia was able to record Cash better than the tiny Sun, so his voice is cradled in velvety surroundings, sounding as smooth as it possibly could be. The songs here are nothing particularly special, except for “I Still Miss Someone,” one of his best. On the whole, the weaker songs hold this back a bit, but just for how the recordings and his voice sound it’s among Cash’s better efforts of the 1950s. But The Sound of Johnny Cash and Songs of Our Soil are both similar albums that are each better overall.

Johnny Cash – The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show: 1969-1971

Johnny Cash – The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show: 1969-1971 Legacy 88697 21230 2 (2008)

TV variety shows were pretty popular on American networks around the time Johnny Cash got his own in the late 1960s. It didn’t last long, as in Cash’s view he and the network execs just didn’t see eye-to-eye. Cash wanting to do a lot of christian material was a big source of friction, supposedly. The “rural purge” by TV networks also played a significant role. Anyway, some material from the show had been released on The Johnny Cash Show (1970). Though the title may be a bit misleading, The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show: 1969-1971 is entirely different from the earlier album and contains material never before released on record — apparently recorded by Cash and tucked away only to be discovered and restored after his death (something that seems irrelevant given that the TV network’s tapes still exist; the origins of this album seem tied up in licensing disputes between ABC and CBS of no substantive interest to music listeners). Only a few of the performances are by Cash. Most are popular artists doing their hits or covering popular country songs. The performances can be a bit rough, with Cash coughing or other singers just not being miked well. And Waylon Jennings doing Chuck Berry‘s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” is cringe worthy (this is the worst of his performances on the episode it was drawn from). But there are a few nice moments, like Ray Charles doing “Ring of Fire” (though the bass player is a bit off and Ray’s breathy whispered vocals sound like they weren’t captured well). The best things here though are a duet between Cash and Joni Mitchell backed by strings and piano on Bob Dylan‘s “Girl From the North Country” and James Taylor doing his signature song “Fire and Rain.” The earlier album from the TV show was better, but this is still enjoyable enough. This one, however, captures more thoroughly (and however awkwardly) the rural-urban exchange that Cash’s show embodied. Dylan gave an interview where he said, “I think of rock ’n’ roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop. Real rock ’n’ roll hasn’t existed since when? 1961, 1962?” He also said, “And that was extremely threatening for the city fathers, I would think. When they finally recognized what it was, they had to dismantle it, which they did, starting with payola scandals and things like that. The black element was turned into soul music and the white element was turned into English pop. They separated it.” In a way, Cash’s show brought some of these elements back together, across the music industry’s lines of segregation, maybe not always into an inseparable combination like rock ‘n’ roll but at least on the same nationally televised stage.

Johnny Cash – A Concert: Behind Prison Walls

Johnny Cash – A Concert: Behind Prison Walls Eagle ER 20027-2 (2003)

A 1974 TV special recorded at Tennessee State Prison and hosted by former Folsom Prison inmate Glen Sherley was titled “A Flower Out of Place.” It featured Johnny Cash and others. Cash had been instrumental in securing Sherley’s release from prison, and famously performed Sherley’s song “Greystone Chapel” for the legendary At Folsom Prison recording. Decades later the TV special was released on DVD and also on this CD, retitled A Concert: Behind Prison Walls. Sherley is excised from the performances on the CD, and it’s credited only to Cash. Roy Clark (of Hee-Haw fame) is here and plays some mean guitar. Cash is not in good form, and is just kind of going through the motions. This show was set up on kind of a big stage and has none of the intimacy of Cash’s 1960s prison albums. TV or no TV, if you count this as another Cash “prison album” it was his fourth within six years, which you could easily say was beating the concept to death and you would probably be right.

Glen Campbell – Rhinestone Cowboy

Glen Campbell – Rhinestone Cowboy Capitol SW-11430 (1975)

In the same territory as The Carpenters, or maybe even Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy has that inimitable 1960s/70s pop country easy listening thing going in full effect, complete with songs that tend to portray a sort of weary, dejected dark side of the “good life”. Things like “Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.)” and “Marie” go to places that Harry Nilsson went (ever notice that Nilsson’s hit 1968 version of Fred Neil‘s “Everybody’s Talkin'” is basically a superior re-make of Campbell’s “Gentle on My Mind” from 1967?), but with a little more straightforward professional reticence. What differs from some of Campbell’s earlier hits is that this is a little more bombastic and self-consciously grandiose in the backing arrangements. And that suits him perfectly. His voice, of course, is a dream. He may not be Karen Carpenter, but damn! It is kind of interesting, too, that he performs “My Girl,” almost like the flip side of Al Green recording Hank Williams, Willie Nelson and Roy Orbison songs. It is emblematic of how most of this album focuses on themes of coping with being thrust into new geographies, being faced with new burdens, and the like, and on trying to humbly overcome those challenges with hard work and effort, but maybe not being able to comprehend if that will work or how else to go about facing those challenges. Some people dismiss this as pure camp or kitsch, but really, a closer listen suggests that those might be coping mechanisms. And even more interesting, perhaps, is how this music sits right on the line between “material” concerns like having a job, providing for a family, etc. and “personal” concerns like heartbreak, anxiety, and other more existential topics.

Johnny Cash – Orange Blossom Special

Johnny Cash – Orange Blossom Special Columbia CS 9109 (1965)

Johnny Cash didn’t always make great albums. Sometimes, especially into the 1970s, he was more of a live performer and going to the studio to record was an afterthought. As a result there was frequently a great song or two and a bunch of mediocre filler. In the 1960s he did a number of concept albums. These would often get off on the wrong foot, like Blood, Sweat & Tears opening with an overly-long “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer.” Orange Blossom Special fits into his concept album era. It was Cash making overtures to the urban folk revival movement. He had already appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in July of 1964, and later that year he was in the studio recording this album. It’s an odd thing really. There is an offhand quality to this, and Cash hardly seems to be pushing himself. But it’s still a fun one. The opening “Orange Blossom Special” is a railroad song — Cash loved railroad songs. It’s a weaker, almost forced performance. But the album picks up. Cash considered himself a collector of songs. So it’s no wonder he came to Bob Dylan pretty early on. While recording At San Quentin he even announced to the audience that Dylan was a great songwriter. There are three Dylan songs here. “It Ain’t Me Babe” is the pick of the bunch. It may just be the definitive reading. “When It’s Springtime in Alaska (It’s Forty Below),” a duet with June Carter but not a Dylan song, is the other classic here. In all, the song selection is superb. It’s eclectic enough to include The Carter Family‘s standard “Wildwood Flower,” the Irish folk tune “Danny Boy,” and the rousing religious number “Amen.” There may be better performances of some of the songs like “Long Black Veil” and “The Wall” on At Folsom Prison, but the quirky performances here keep things fresh so that even listing to this back to back with other versions nothing would drag. It may take a few listens to come around to this one. But it is such a pleasant, unassuming little album that touches on so many classic themes of love, god, murder and liberty that run through Cash’s entire body of work that fans may find themselves coming back to this one more than most.

Johnny Cash – Now, There Was a Song! Memories From the Past

Johnny Cash – Now, There Was a Song! Memories From the Past Columbia CS 8254 (1960)

When Cash moved to Columbia Records, his first few albums continued where he had left off at Sun Records. There was a mixture of teen-idol material, now having more elaborate production, with gospel and folk. These early Columbia albums were produced by Don Law. Now, There Was a Song! featured the addition of producer Frank Jones. Law and Jones would continue to work with Cash for most of the decade. Together, the three created a series of concept albums — though the “concept” is more stylistic than thematic here.

Most of Cash’s music revolves around his trademark boom-chicka-boom rhythm and relatively simple instrumentation, with rock ‘n roll influences that separate it from most commercial country music. Now, There Was a Song! paired Cash and The Tennessee Two with a fiddle, pedal steel guitar, and piano, with more conventional honky tonk settings and rhythms. The thing is, it works! The covers are perfectly selected — even if “Cocaine Blues” is forced to appear as the censored version “Transfusion Blues”. Cash sounds like he loves these songs and is thrilled to be performing them. He was on top of the world at this point in his career. He was enjoying plenty of success, and drugs and the grind of touring had yet to take their tolls on him. Sure, this one clocks in at barely over 26 minutes, but it’s nice to have nothing but great tunes rather than a set bogged down by a lot of inferior filler. This is one of the man’s most consistently good albums, even if paradoxically it’s probably least representative of his trademark sound and somewhat like a lot of other country recordings of the 40s and 50s.

Johnny Cash – Man in Black

Johnny Cash – Man in Black Columbia 30550 (1971)

The accepted wisdom is that sometime around the 1970s Johnny Cash’s music became effete. It would be unfair to place any blame for that on Man in Black, which, aside from the still-better Ragged Old Flag, has to be one of his best offerings until the American Recordings two decades later. Here he adopted a folky, singer-songriter style reminiscent of Orange Blossom Special or Hello, I’m Johnny Cash but more stripped down. It works, and it works well. Now, let’s get one thing out of the way. The opening song “The Preacher Said, ‘Jesus Said,'” with its grating narration by Billy Graham (whom Malcolm X called a “white nationalist” and who advocated war crimes during the Vietnam War), is difficult to stomach. Cash’s “born again” christian sentiments get the better of him, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time. If you can look past that first track, the rest is a lot more rewarding. “Orphan of the Road” is a highlight, and makes it interesting to contemplate how a collaboration with John Fahey might have sounded. Other songs like “You’ve Got A New Light Shining In Your Eyes,” with its clear and bright vocals, and “Man in Black,” with its empowered tone, are quite good too. Side two features some interesting songwriting from Cash. The beautifully honest “Singing in Vietnam Talking Blues” (sung to the same rhythm as “A Boy Named Sue”) is an autobiographical account of a USO performance for U.S. troops fighting in Viet Nam. He sings:

we did our best
to let ’em know that we care
for every last one of ’em
that’s over there
whether we belong over there or not

That last line — just sort of tossed in — is really the sort of thing that separates Johnny Cash from so many other country musicians. Reactionary populism runs pretty thick with a lot of country stars (check: Merle Haggard‘s The Fightin’ Side of Me), but few are or were willing to even imply sympathy with protest or peace movements. But Cash was always cut from a different cloth. He sang songs about the North, about Alaska and Minnesota. He also would sing songs for prisoners, like “Dear Mrs.” here. It’s hard to pin down Johnny Cash on his politics. He always dodged those issues pretty successfully, in part because he sometimes seemed to play both sides (“Ragged Old Flag” or “The One on the Right Is on the Left” anyone?). In concert he once called himself a “dove with claws.” But his ability to successfully and quite matter-of-factly broach a lot of difficult and unpopular subjects (Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian) and still maintain celebrity status was impressive.

Willie Nelson and Sister Bobbie – December Day

Willie Nelson and Sister Bobbie – December Day: Willie’s Stash Vol. 1 Legacy 88875017012 (2014)

Willie Nelson and his sister Bobbie have been performing together their entire lives. Bobbie has always been a rock of consistently complimentary playing. Many of Willie’s finest recordings feature her prominently. December Day, though, is a goof. The two regularly play on their tour bus, and this album is meant to document the way they play together on that tour bus, away from their fans. Unfortunately, that results in an album that sounds like a bunch of performers who have played these songs a few hundred times too many noodling about trying to entertain themselves with arbitrary variations from their usual public performance styles. This amounts to a bunch of hi-fidelity demo recordings of uncertain value. December Day only serves to reinforce how much better these two have performed these songs elsewhere. The best here is the rendition of “Permanently Lonely.”

Johnny Cash – The Johnny Cash Show

Johnny Cash – The Johnny Cash Show Columbia KC 30100 (1970)

Thanks to the mega-success of two live albums recorded in different prisons at the tail end of the 1960s (At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin), Johnny Cash was offered his own TV show on the ABC network that premiered in June of 1969. It was filmed at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the former home of the Grand Ole Opry. Cash had been banned from the Opry a few years earlier after he smashed out all the stage lights with a microphone stand in a drug-fueled fit. But now he was back as the main attraction. The show marked the absolute pinnacle of Cash’s popularity. Broadcast to millions of homes across the country (and rebroadcast internationally), he went from being a star to a cultural icon. It was a whole new level. The program was a musical variety show, sort of a country music counterpart to The Lawrence Welk Show. A lot of big stars appeared on the show over its run. A sampling of recordings from guests — and Cash — was posthumously featured on The Best of The Johnny Cash TV Show: 1969-1971. There were country stars, but also rock, folk and comedy performances. There were regular appearances by familiar supporting musicians like The Carter Family, The Statler Brothers and Carl Perkins. An orchestra was regularly featured too.

Cash met Kris Kristofferson on the set. Kristofferson was working as a janitor at the auditorium at the time, yet to really make it as a musician. Cash performed Kristofferson’s great “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and made it both a hit and the definitive reading. It’s the clear highlight here.

Cash did a regular “Ride This Train” segment on the show, named after Cash’s 1960 concept album, that featured medleys and stories about Americana themes. It was a part of the show that Cash felt strongly about, but the Network tried to cut it to please advertisers. Cash did more religious content over time, and even went so far as to make announcements about his christian faith.

This album, The Johnny Cash Show, only scratches the surface of what was on the TV show. Only a small fraction of the series has been released on album. It’s a shame because there were actually many great and interesting performances on the show, worthy of attention. But what is here is good stuff. “Sunday Morning Coming down” is definitely the highlight. Yet every last track is enjoyable. There is a kind of smoothing over of Cash’s routine. Don’t expect his trademark rock-inflected boom-chicka-boom rhythm or any joking around. This is clearly “professional” music aimed at as wide an audience as possible. Though it doesn’t really lose much, if anything, in cleaning and polishing every facet. But it is a different side of Cash’s music than just about any of his other albums — even if some video releases into the 1980s have more similarities.

The show ended in March of 1971. Cash later wrote that he was exhausted from the schedule and felt he had done everything he could with it when it ended. But it was the network’s decision more than anything, as rural-focused programs were dropped in favor of more urban programming, not to mention Cash’s refusal to cave-in to advertiser demands. The show did give Cash tremendous exposure, which enabled him to tour incessantly in the following years. His touring act picked up much of the content and form of the TV show, resembling a sort of traveling Vegas show.

Ironically, while “The Johnny Cash Show” was one of the major successes of his career, and the entire reason many fans knew him in the first place, it became a sort of forgotten aspect of Cash’s legacy for younger listeners. This album going out of print probably has something to do with that. While it might not be everyone’s favorite side of his music, it deserves more attention than it has tended to receive.

Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors

Dolly Parton – Coat of Many Colors RCA Victor LSP 4603 (1971)

Dolly’s big breakthrough as a solo act was Coat of Many Colors, with the opening three songs each becoming hits. However, the album as a whole, while often regarded as finding her at an artistic peak, is deeply contradicted. Her former duet partner Porter Wagoner wrote three of the songs, and they are largely the worst things here, from the creepy swingers song “If I Lose My Mind” to the drab religious tune “The Mystery of the Mystery” they have no heart and simply scrape around for anything that will appeal to a target demographic. The big surprise, though, is Dolly’s songwriting. “My Blue Tears” and “Here I Am” are pretty compelling, with clear lineage to Nashville country music of old but also warm, modern electric instrumentation that slides gracefully into the then-burgeoning singer-songwriter movement on the U.S. West Coast. There aren’t any great surprises in the performances, but they all easily make use of the best contemporary trends with an open mind.

With the title track, it is worth contrasting Dolly to another big country star of the day: Loretta Lynn. Lynn was a bold songwriter, who had a hit in 1970 with “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” an autobiographical song about growing up in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Dolly’s song is about compensating for the shame and deprivation of poverty with family ties, while Lynn’s is more about the dignity of subsistence labor. The perspective in Dolly’s song is of a clash of different value systems, one based on monetary wealth (that would buy a new, professionally made coat) and self-improvised utility (making a coat from rags, for lack of alternatives). But while she sings about not understanding why others don’t recognize the “love” that went into making the homemade “coat of many colors,” there is a conceit in pleading for the listener to place what she had above what she lacked, by tacitly accepting the value system of the kids who laughed at the poverty her homemade clothing symbolized. She sings, “One is only poor only if you choose to be,” the classic trope that everything in the world is purely a matter of individual choice rather than choice positioned in a context of constraints that might not be subject to an individual’s control. Lynn’s song envisions something beyond a value system that denigrates the work of a Kentucky coal miner to support a family, and grapples with the concrete ways her family addressed the hardships of poverty. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” looks back on the past, and finds meaning (truth) in what survived (in memories) and lead to where she ended up. “Coat of Many Colors” likewise looks back on the past, but as a sentimental episode confined to the past. Its only relationship to the present seems to that of a distancing effect, by placing deprivation in a bygone era that was somehow overcome (in ways never explained or implied by the song). To put it more simply, Dolly’s song competes within a system that strives to place winners above losers and claims a victory in that terrain, while Lynn’s song calmly rebels against such a system by entertaining the possibility of every humble person living a good life on her own terms without distinguishing between winners and losers. So, even from just the microcosm of these two songs, it is no surprise that Lynn’s persona was that of a feminist icon, with a sassy, “independent woman” demeanor that was at odds with the normally conservative politics behind commercial Nashville music of the day, while Dolly’s was that of a woman succeeding within the confines of a social structure that assigned her to a subordinate status by playing the “Backwoods Barbie Doll” role. Dolly later starred in Hollywood movies, at most in roles in which her character seeks accommodation and satisfaction in unjust scenarios, while a “New Hollywood” movie based on Lynn’s life boldly had non-musician actresses sing — convincingly — songs associated with talented country stars.