Tag: Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash and The Tennessee Three – One Piece at a Time Columbia KC 34193 (1976)

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After a few years without any significant chart success, Cash had a mild comeback with One Piece at a Time and its title track single.  The album features a mixture of ballads and bouncy, novelty-inflected, up-tempo numbers.  Easily the best thing here is the title track, a rollicking tale of an auto worker pilfering parts to assemble his dream automobile, only to have things go comically awry.  It’s the best known Cash single of the 1970s, and for good reason.  The piano riff was lifted from somewhere else, though the source eludes me at the moment.  Overall, this one is decent if a little bland.  Sort of a top of the third tier Cash album.

Johnny Cash – A Believer Sings the Truth Cachet Records CL 3-9001 (1979)

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A relatively unknown album in some ways.  It is perhaps the most eclectic one Johnny Cash ever recorded.  Stylistically it’s all over the place.  Jo-El Sonnier is on the sessions and his vaguely New Orleans second-line/Dixieland styled “I’ve Got Jesus in My Soul,” complete with a clarinet solo and brass band chorus, is something unusual for Cash.  There is a version of Sister Rosetta Tharpe‘s “There Are Strange Things Happening Everyday” that’s decent too.  In his first autobiography, Man in Black, Cash told about going to a Tharpe concert in the early Sixties, as his amphetamine addiction grew.  “Oh Come, Angel Band” is the song most frequently included on compilations.  The horns, boogie-woogie piano, and contemporary backing vocals make this album unlike most others from Cash.  In a way, it seems a little like he was taking cues from what Elvis had been up to earlier in the decade (Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite, etc.), or maybe even what Bob Dylan was trying to do around this same time (Street-Legal, At Budokan).  Anyway, A Believer Sings the Truth isn’t gonna convince anyone of Cash’s talents if you haven’t heard him in better form elsewhere.  But this one finds him stretching and finding some success with many different approaches.  It holds up fairly well.  It’s too bad he didn’t record any secular albums the same way around this time, because it does seem like producers killed a lot of his albums back then.  Oh, and here’s a spoiler.  “The Greatest Cowboy of Them All” is god.  God is the greatest cowboy of them all.

Johnny Cash – The Sound of Johnny Cash Columbia CS 8602 (1962)

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After a few albums that tried to test the limits of Johnny Cash’s stylistic range and abilities — from the concept album Ride This Train to the retro country album Now There Was a Song! Memories From the Past to a second, drier gospel album Hymns From the Heart — he returns to the established folk-country sound of The Fabulous Johnny Cash and Songs of Our Soil with The Sound of Johnny Cash.  While he is not trying to break any new ground, and there is not any standout single included, this remains one of his better early/middle period albums.  It is a pleasantly mellow and likeable album that aligns the material and performances with Cash’s disposition as a singer raised on a farm but with some years of national touring behind him.  He sort of honors his roots, yet also aims for something that has a touch of urban sophistication that stretches beyond those roots. By 1962 Cash’s voice had changed a bit, deepening and coarsening as a result of a steady touring performance schedule that left him with problems of chronic hoarseness.  Those troubles with his vocal chords don’t surface on this album, but rather add a layer of complexity — turmoil even — just under the surface.

“In them Old Cottonfields Back Home” is a traditional folk song, and it just happens to ring true to Cash’s own upbringing on an Arkansas cotton farm.  “Mr. Lonesome” with its vibraphone accompaniment and Cash singing at a lethargic pace, going into his lower vocal register, with light backing vocals, is pitch perfect for the album.  Halfway between a smooth pop romance song and country heartbreak weeper it fits the hybridized city/country style that Cash had mastered.  Then there is his first recording of the grim first-person tale “Delia’s Gone” (revived decades later with great success on American Recordings):

“First time I shot her
Shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died”

With that song Cash was sticking to his fascination with murder and the dark side of life.  A star of his stature might have been tempted to cast those interests aside and go exclusively with lighter fare — like Elvis around this time.  Johnny Cash never did what might be expected, though.

Guitarist Luther Perkins is a crucial presence.  As the music pushes toward urban sophistication, Perkins’ iconic boom-chicka-boom guitar picking is this primitive ballast that refuses to dissolve into the airy, consonant vocal harmonies.  Yet that guitar sound is also an ideal foil for Cash’s vocal phrasing, allowing Cash’s singing to occupy a middle ground that moves confidently into the era of post-WWII prosperity without forgetting the grit, hard work and determination of a rural childhood.  Cash’s background is honored while still being compartmentalized as a stepping stone to a role as an musical ambassador of sorts — most of Cash’s political views fit into the left-ish end of New Deal programs that accompanied the post-war boom.

Johnny Cash – I Would Like to See You Again Columbia KC 35313 (1978)

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In a relative sense at least, I Would Like to See You Again is one choice for Johnny Cash’s best album from the period that ran from the late 1970s through entire 1980s — only the unusual and slightly rough-hewn concept album The Rambler comes close, but that one puts theatrical elements in place of proper songs in a way that makes it less suited to regular listening.  From the odd album cover, to the generally lackluster quality of his albums of this time period, this album doesn’t seem like it would have much to offer.  Add to that the fact that Cash compilations tend to include the least interesting songs on it, and maybe it is not too surprising that this is often overlooked entirely.  By no means is this a top tier Cash album.  It still plays well all the way through — helped, perhaps, by being a meager 32 odd minutes in length.  There is an amiable, mellow tone to most of the songs, with a hint of weariness and nostalgia.  Cash’s voice is unburdened by overbearing fads and the band plays supportively.  Pianist Earl Poole Ball, a veteran who played with Buck Owens and plenty of other country legends, was a huge asset to Cash’s band.  He (with the other session pianists) plays just enough to change the pace without overdoing it.  The guitarists add some politely sly licks on an electric guitar to further inject some virility.

The songs are nice.  They suit Cash in middle age.  One of the best is “Abner Brown.”  Cash wrote the song himself.  As a character portrait, it was a familiar format for him (e.g., “Cisco Clifton’s Fillin’ Station”).  It is a tale of a small town drunk known from childhood, admired and celebrated by the narrator for his good nature.  Others only tolerated Abner Brown, but Cash’s song celebrates him as a friend and a salt of earth type (in the full biblical meaning of the phrase drawn from the Sermon on the Mount).  The one song that does seem out of character, with its heavy (right-wing) rural populism, is “After Taxes” (not written by Cash).  But the album opens strong with the title track, “Lately,” and “I Wish I Was Crazy Again.”  “I Don’t Think I Could Take You Back Again” might be the most effective performance.

Few will name this as a career favorite from Cash, but it is a good one to play to accompany a reunion of unselfconscious friends or any other gathering of effortlessly familiar, kindred spirits.  It has a slight “bro” quality perhaps; it isn’t intrusive though.

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

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

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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.

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

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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 Columbia CS 8254 (1960)

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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 Columbia 30550 (1971)

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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.