CD Odyssey Disc 1210: Johnny Cash

Once again a busy week conspired against me finding time to write a review, and left me to give an album many more listens than I might have otherwise. Once again the experience was positive.

Disc 1210 is… Unchained

Artist: Johnny Cash

Year of Release: 1996

What’s up with the Cover? You can spend a lot of time proving you can hit the broad side of a barn but as Johnny shows here, they’re mostly good for leanin’.

How I Came To Know It: Johnny’s been in my house longer than I have (my mom used to listen to him before I was born) but this particular album was the result of more recent drilling through his musical Renaissance with Rick Rubin.

How It Stacks Up:  I have added to my Johnny Cash collection since I reviewed “American III: Solitary Man” back at Disc 687. As a result I now have seven studio albums: three from his heyday and four from his rebirth in the nineties and oughts. even “Unchained” is first among the rebirth albums and second overall.

Ratings:  4 stars

In 1994 Rick Rubin reinvigorated and reinvented Johnny Cash for a whole new generation of fans with “American Recordings.” Its follow up, “Unchained,” takes the same stripped down and stark approach Cash’s signature voice, creating a record that is raw and real and proof positive that Cash was back on top, and there to stay.

All of the American Recordings produced by Rubin strip the bells and whistles out of its song selections, and leave the skeleton bare and white for your consideration. This would expose any melodic shortcomings in short order, but Cash has always been a master curator of songs, and only selects the best. Whether a song is metal, folk, country or pop, Cash can always hear the inner beauty of a good tune.

On “Unchained” his selection talents are on full display. On some of these later records, he selects songs that may be great songs in their own right, but sound clunky when sung by Cash. They are great songs, but not always great for him. “Unchained” doesn’t have any true clunkers. The closest he comes is covering Dean Martin’s “Memories Are Made Of This” and even that has a nice swing to it – the kind of cover you could see people swaying to in the common room of a retirement home on dance night.

Other than that, “Unchained” is a love letter from Cash to the songs that have inspired him through the decades. He drops amazing covers of Don Gibson’s “Sea of Heartbreak” (1961) and Roy Clark’s hit “I Never Picked Cotton.” (1970). And – full disclosure – I had to Google those artists and had never heard of either one. Getting picked up by Johnny in this way is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, your song lives again, but on the other now that song belongs to Cash for ever more. “I Never Picked Cotton” is particularly great. The story of a young and poor man who chooses a life of crime after watching his family wear themselves to the bone at manual labour scraping out a subsistence living.

The album has a host of high points, but none more so than Cash taking on Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage.” Cash has always lived in that tension between his natural tendency toward wild abandon and the desire to be a good man, and to live a just life. Songs like “Rusty Cage” with their combined themes of confinement and rebellion were made for him. All the grunge may be stripped out of the song, but all the nasty remains. Cash spits out Cornell’s words with all the vitriol of the original, with an extra dose of mean old man on the side.

Equally good is his cover of Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents,” a celebration of Cash’s southern roots. Petty’s original feels restless and uncertain, but you can tell Cash’s version of the character is more at peace with the same itinerant and worn out character.

Cash often puts his faith at the forefront, and “Unchained” has two great entries. The title track (written by Jude Johnstone in the early oughts) and “Spiritual” (by nineties rock band Spain). I checked out both originals on Youtube and while they were good they couldn’t hold up to the majesty of Cash’s delivery. When Johnny sings a devotional it swallows him whole. He takes you into the belly of the whale where he is clearly overwhelmed by the glory of God. I’m not religious, but you don’t have to be to be awed by what Cash is feeling in these moments.

I recently bought a couple of Cash’s records from the fifties and sixties, during his first run at fame. They are brilliant but “Unchained” stands equal beside them, a fitting legacy to one of music’s great icons.

Best tracks: Sea of Heartbreak, Rusty Cage, Spiritual, Southern Accents, Mean Eyed Cat, I Never Picked Cotton, Unchained

CD Odyssey Disc 701: Johnny Cash

I took my first guitar lesson in almost a year on Thursday, and I really enjoyed it. Learning to play music has definitely increased the joy I get from listening to it, in the same way as studying literature makes me enjoy a good read more.

This next album is yet another compilation album – sorry about that. At least it is a good one.

Disc 701 is…. Classic Cash

Artist: Johnny Cash

Year of Release: 1988 but with music from the fifties and sixties (and two songs from the seventies as well).

What’s up with the Cover? The man in black! Of course, everyone is black when in silhouette.

How I Came To Know It: Finding good Johnny Cash albums on CD isn’t easy, so when I spotted a collection containing a lot of his classics, I decided I’d go ahead and get a dreaded compilation album. I remain on the lookout for good original Cash albums, though.

How It Stacks Up:  I have a bunch of Johnny Cash albums to stack up against each other, but this isn’t one of them. “Best Of” albums don’t get stacked up!

Rating: “Best of” albums don’t get rated either. That’s how we roll here on the CD Odyssey.

This album was like a return to the more pleasant parts of my childhood. I grew up in a small B.C. industrial town, and Johnny Cash was a mainstay in most of the blue collar houses there.

My house was no exception, with my Mom often putting Johnny Cash records on when she was puttering around the house. I’d sit in the living room near the stereo, reading a book or playing a game while Johnny told tales of tough times, hard love and gun-totin’ cowboys.

This is Johnny Cash in his prime; his voice rough and soothing at the same time, like a mountain stream burbling over gravel.

Cash and a few others like him took country music to a new place in the fifties. It was a place filled with imperfect characters, made beautiful in part because of their character blemishes.

“Long Black Veil,” “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” and “Folsom Prison Blues” are all songs about people who make terrible errors in judgment yet Johnny puts you in their shows, and makes you feel compassion for them.

In “Long Black Veil” a man defends a woman’s honour by not telling a judge that his alibi on the night of a murder was that he was sleeping with his best friend’s wife. It’s a strange and twisted honour, but in Cash’ hands you still find yourself pitying the doomed man’s lingering ghost. “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” is about a headstrong youth that goes to town looking for trouble, and finds more than he can handle. As for “Folsom Prison Blues” – that guy shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

Cash doesn’t limit himself to these topics, though. He’s a born storyteller who can find a narrative in just playing an instrument (“Get Rhythm”, “Tennessee Flat Top Box”) or lost love (“I Still Miss Someone”, “I Guess Things Happen That Way”) and how the love of a good woman can inspire us to be better men (“I Walk the Line”).

Unfortunately, Cash occasionally strays into the hokey, such as on “Five Feet High and Rising,” a stupid song about a heavy rainstorm. Even worse is “Supper Time,” which has Johnny musing about having supper in heaven with his dead mom. That should be a touching sentiment, but it just comes off as plain goofy.

The songs are a mix of Cash originals (he is a gifted songwriter) and excellent covers. My only quibble is “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” Although Cash made it famous, I think Kris Kristofferson’s original is better. That’s the only time that happens though. For the most part when Cash sings your song, that song becomes his.

Musically, Cash’s sound has never been duplicated. His deep voice (I’m not sure if he’s a high bass or a low baritone) is the first thing you notice, but over the years I’ve also appreciated his guitar playing style. It is a bit ‘loose in stays’ at times, but it has a perfect country swing that had my strumming hand playing air while I listened on more than one occasion.

The songs are also often punctuated with a hint of piano or Spanish guitar that helps round out the overall sound nicely.

Although this greatest hits package has 20 songs (six more than my usual maximum) many are short, and the whole experience comes in at a relatively reasonable 53 minutes. If anything, I was left wanting a little more.

Best tracks: Tennessee Flat Top Box, Long Black Veil, I Still Miss Someone, Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, Guess Things Happen That Way, I Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, Ballad of Ira Hayes, Folsom Prison Blues

CD Odyssey Disc 687: Johnny Cash

The Odyssey doesn’t stop until I’ve listened to every album in my collection, so despite a busy week I’m making time for reviews. Always make time for music in your life, my friends.

Disc 687 is…. American III: Solitary Man

Artist: Johnny Cash

Year of Release: 2000

What’s up with the Cover?  Looks like Johnny waiting to go on stage. I’ve had lots of occasions over the years to perform on stage, or speak to a large group of people. There is an undeniable nervous energy right before you go out. If you like public speaking (which I do) it can feel very exhilarating, but it definitely has a solitary quality to it as well. All of which makes this a perfect picture for an album called “Solitary Man.”

How I Came To Know It: Like a lot of people I discovered these latter-career gems on American Recordings at “American IV: The Man Comes Around” when Cash did the now famous video for “Hurt.” “American III: Solitary Man” was just me drilling through all the earlier volumes.

How It Stacks Up:  I have one best of Johnny Cash album, plus five studio albums, four of which are the American recordings offerings. While the classic “San Quentin” is the easily best, “Solitary Man” is the best of the American recordings works, putting it second best overall.

Rating: 3 stars but almost 4

Rick Rubin rejuvenated Cash’s career with these sparsely produced and deeply emotional albums right at the end of his life. They all have a lot of covers, which work or fail to varying degrees. I’m going to try something new and review them in sections based on how well Johnny pulls it off.

Category 1: You tell ‘em, Johnny ! You tell the world!

At his best, when Cash does a cover song it is reborn; a fresh classic that is own forever his as much as it belongs to the original artist. “Solitary Man” has a couple of these gems, “One,” and “I See A Darkness.”

“One” is the U2 classic, and as much as I love that version, I love Cash’s rendition more. Stripped down to an anxious guitar strum and Cash’s deep, quavering voice, the song’s theme of reaching out to one another through confusion and doubt really comes through.

“I See A Darkness” feels like a song written by Cash, and for Cash. It is the story of one man’s darkness, and his willingness to tell others about it, but only in the dead of night with one too many dead soldiers on the table, and an ashtray of cigarette butts between you. It felt so much like a Johnny Cash song that when I checked out the Bonnie Prince Billy original, I was shocked at its up-tempo bounce. I am definitely going to get myself some Bonnie Prince Billy, but while his original version is great it can’t match the dark truths that Johnny sings into it.

I also love the way Rick Rubin puts emphasis in the production on all the guitar’s root notes, creating a growing sense of dark purpose on every chord change. This is true for both these songs, and many others besides.

Category 2: Johnny gits ‘er done

Even if he doesn’t blow you away, Johnny usually gits ‘er done, and while a lot of his other tracks aren’t the same level as the two I’ve just noted, there is plenty of other good tracks on “Solitary Man.”

In fact the title track is the Neil Diamond classic, and while the vocals on this one aren’t a masterpiece, paired with the thick strumming and punctuated high notes on the guitar, this song really works. I prefer the Chris Isaak cover of this song, but Johnny does it well.

Other beauties are the pastoral David Allan Coe track “Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)” and a strong version of Nick Cave’s homicidal “The Mercy Seat” (although I prefer the Nick Cave original. Johnny just can’t match Nick’s maniacal combination of glee and fury).

Category 3: Why, Johnnie? Why?

Every one of these American Recordings albums has a song that Johnny should have just left alone, but somehow couldn’t. Johnny has a great ear for a good song, and I think sometimes he hears one and just can’t help himself, despite how poorly suited he is for it. Other records have a lot more of these than “Solitary Man,” but the entry for this record would be Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

Despite some very cool guitar work and arrangements, Johnny just sounds a little frail here, like an old guy who’s escaped the retirement home and having been found by the orderlies, is refusing to go back. I don’t love hearing him sing this song, but I still hope to be that same old guy one day.

Category 4: Cash does Cash

There are three Cash originals on this album, showing everyone that Cash still has the creative fire. I found “Country Trash” and “I’m Leaving Now” both a bit hokey, but the retrospective and relaxed “Before My Time” is Cash at his best. His deep voice sounds his love across the ages and reminded me of the Robert Browning poem “Love Among the Ruins.” If you can remind me of that poem, you’re doing something right.

All in all, this is a strong effort and while it is uneven overall, it is worth owning if only to hear him sing “One” and “I See A Darkness” and revel in the magic that Rick Rubin invokes restoring Cash to his former greatness.

Best tracks: One, I See A Darkness, Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone), Before My Time, Mary of the Wild Moor

CD Odyssey Disc 668: Various Artists

I’m having a fun weekend; so much fun it feels almost too full.

Case in point – I am scrambling to write this review so I can go watch my beloved Miami Dolphins plan the Oakland Raiders. If this review posts after kick off don’t judge me – I’m taping the game to make sure I don’t miss a single play.

On to the record!

Disc 668 is…. Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska

Artist: Various Artists

Year of Release: 2000

What’s up with the Cover?  An abandoned car on the side of the road offsets a string of power poles stretching into the distance. No grain-yellows of Nebraska are here, just a washed out brown-grey that speaks to the stark loneliness of the Great Plains and the desperate characters that inhabit them on this album.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve only had this album a few months. I think I was falling down the Youtube rabbit-hole one day and saw the Chrissie Hynde/Adam Seymour version of the title track. A little digging at the local record store unearthed the rest of the album.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a compilation album, so doesn’t really stack up. It does make me wish more classic albums would get this treatment.

Rating: 4 stars

Hearing other artists sing the songs from Springsteen’s “Nebraska” underscores what a masterpiece the original album is. “Badlands” is an exact replica of the original 1982 record, with various artists putting a new spin on each of the songs. I generally prefer the Springsteen originals, although there are many tracks here that equal the original recording. The great thing is you don’t have to choose one over the other – “Badlands” gives you a chance to hear the whole record again with fresh ears.

The original album is filled with the stories of desperate characters doing desperate, often illegal things, as they stumble through a life with a lot of hard turns. Since I haven’t reviewed “Nebraska” yet, I’ll focus on the treatments given the songs, rather than their subject matter.

The album opens with Chrissie Hynde and Adam Seymour covering “Nebraska.” Hynde’s deep and soulful rock voice is the perfect match to this song, and she perfectly captures its sparseness and desperation. An organ echoes throughout, underscoring the emptiness of bad decisions and broken futures. It is one of the album’s standouts.

Folk singer Dar Williams comes through strong as well, covering my favourite song on the original, “Highway Patrolman.” The song is about two brothers – one good and one bad – and I like that Dar doesn’t change the main character’s sex. It doesn’t matter that she is singing a male part. It just gives the song a great storytelling quality.

In fact I was listening to this track right as I arrived at work earlier this week and it inspired me so much that I immediately looked up the chords and printed them out so I could learn it on guitar. I haven’t picked the guitar up in two months, but when I do so next, it will be to learn “Highway Patrolman.”

Hank Williams III is the perfect touch of lowlife twang to give “Atlantic City” a new feel. Hank III’s redneck approach to the song makes the character in the song simultaneously more cocksure and less able to handle the trouble that’s bussing in from out of state to Atlantic City. I had this cover from Hank III’s album “Lovesick, Broke and Driftin’” but that version had a ‘hidden track’ tagged onto the end of it, which is annoying. It is nice to have just the song on its own.

On “Used Cars” Ani DiFranco’s whispered delivery brings out Springsteen’s character of a young child’s first understanding of economic disparity. These are the kids that grow up to the crime sprees on “Nebraska” and DiFranco gives you a front row seat to the innocent kids they start out as in a way the big an manly Springsteen can’t do.

The original “Nebraska” album ends with the relatively optimistic “Reason to Believe” and the cover on “Badlands” by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn is even more upbeat.  My only quibble on this song is wishing Mann took the lead on vocals, rather than providing loose harmony support to Penn. That’s just because I love Aimee Mann’s voice though, not an indictment of Penn’s solid work here.

Instead of ending with “Reason To Believe” the CD has three bonus Springsteen covers off albums other than Nebraska. The best of these is Johnny Cash’s version of “I’m on Fire,” but Raul Malo and the Mavericks version of “Downbound Train” and Damien Jurado and Rose Thomas’ “Wages of Sin” are both excellent as well.

When your original material is five-star quality you’ve already got a leg up, but you also have a lot of pressure to do the work justice. “Badlands” comes through beautifully, providing new takes on one of Springsteen’s great achievements, without losing the core elements of the original that make it such a classic.

Best tracks: Nebraska (Chrissie Hynde), Atlantic City (Hank III), Johnny 99 (Los Lobos),  Highway Patrolman (Dar Williams), Open All Night (Son Volt), Reason to Believe (Aimee Mann/Michael Penn), I’m on Fire (Johnny Cash)

CD Odyssey Disc 564: Johnny Cash

After a fun weekend (so fun, in fact, that I didn’t get around to writing this review until now) it was back to work.  It is always a great feeling when you enjoy your job like I do, but I’d be lying if I said the prospect of a three day weekend doesn’t also appeal.

On that weekend I’ll be going to see Emmylou Harris, but before I do here’s a review of a famous live album by another country music legend.  It is also the second five star album in a row, which is another reason I took my time before moving on.

Disc 564 is…. At San Quentin

Artist: Johnny Cash

Year of Release: 1969

What’s up with the Cover?  Johnny Cash on stage.  I used to stare at this picture as a kid, in awe of Johnny Cash’s star power and how eminently cool he looked.  I feel pretty much the same as an adult, although I now wonder if that bass neck in the foreground is a left-hander.  I hope so.

How I Came To Know It:  I’ve known this album since I was a very small child.  My Mom owned it on vinyl and it got played quite a bit.  When I saw it had been reissued in 2000 on CD with all the extra songs from the concert that didn’t fit on the original vinyl I snapped it up.

How It Stacks Up:  I have six Johnny Cash albums, but one of them is a ‘best of’ so doesn’t really count.  The other four are his later American Recordings albums, making this the only classic Cash album I have.  I like it best for that, and it is also better than any of the American Recordings albums, so I’ll put it first of all of them, new and old alike.

Rating:  5 stars

You always know you’re listening to a classic live album when no matter how many times you listen to it, you always feels like you’re sitting in the audience, enjoying the show for the first time.  “Live at San Quentin” is one of those albums.

This is Johnny Cash at his greatest; larger than life and packing equal parts outlaw sneer and Christian devotion.  His audience for “Live at San Quentin” is a hall full of hardened criminals to whom he promises a set-list of “what you want me to, and what I want to do” before launching into a vigorous version of “I Walk the Line.”

Like any great concert, there are plenty of other crow-pleasing favourites, including “A Boy Named Sue,” “and “Ring of Fire” and they are all played beautifully.  In between songs, Cash’s gravelly voice dispenses humour, down-home wisdom and heartfelt appreciation for the musicians sharing the stage with him (these include wife June Carter and the Carter Family, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers).

Songs are very much chosen with the audience in mind, and Cash goes the extra mile for the inmates.  In addition to the obvious choices like “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Starkville City Jail” he has a couple songs specifically tailored to his audience. 

The first is “I Don’t Know Where I’m Bound” that Cash explains is a song that a San Quentin inmate had earlier mailed to him.  Cash uses the lyrics but writes a new tune to accompany them explaining that he couldn’t read the sheet music.  This seems unlikely, but if it is a lie, it is a white lie, and with the genius of Cash’s music, the lyrics speak beautifully to the mindset of an inmate at San Quentin, unsure of his future:

“Can't stand locks, bars or doors

Mean cops insanity and wars

Gotta find a place of peace

Till then my travellin' won’t cease

But I don't know where I'm bound

“There's gotta be a place for me

Under some green growing tree

Clear cool water running by

An unfettered view of the sky

But I don't know where I'm bound”

Sadly, this song wasn’t on the vinyl version I grew up with, and what a travesty to not include it.  The other San Quentin song is included, which is Johnny Cash’s own take on the maximum security penitentiary, as he imagines an inmate would view it.  On the surface, “San Quentin” is a visceral attack on the prison itself, as Cash sings “San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell” to a chorus of raucous cheers from the prisoners.

Even as a small boy, I loved the rugged iconoclasm of that line, delivered under the watchful eyes of the very guards and establishment that had invited him in.  Hidden inside the song, however, is an even more subtle attack on the nature of the prison system itself:

“San Quentin, what good do you think you do?

 Do you think I'll be different when you're through?

 You bent my heart and mind and you warp my soul,

Your stone walls turn my blood a little cold”

For all the dehumanizing experience of prison life, Cash has a genuine affection for his audience, notwithstanding that most of them would have earned their way in there.  As Cash puts it in his introduction to San Quentin, “I think I understand a little bit about how you feel about some things, it’s none of my business how you feel about some other things, and I don’t give a damn how you feel about some other things.”

Cash wins the prisoners over with a mix of honesty and irreverence, but he offers them hope in the same place he found it himself in his darkest hours: in religion.  You can almost feel the beaming smile of June Carter behind him as he sings “There’ll Be Peace in the Valley” and “He Turned the Water Into Wine.” “The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago,” has a full church service feel, with the Statler brothers and the Carter family pitching in with verses.

It is in these moments that it is clear that Johnny Cash didn’t come to the prison to sell records.  He is there to give these men some hope at a dark time in their lives.  I’m not a religious man, and the devotionals aren’t my favourites, but they are what gives the record its heart.

“Live at San Quentin” is a labour of love for a group of people who hadn’t seen a lot of it in their lives.  It is also one hell of a live record that shows community of spirit can happen anywhere where there is a willing heart and a collection of amazing musicians.

Best tracks:   Big River, I Walk the Line, I Don’t Know Where I’m Bound, Starkville City Jail, San Quentin, Folsom Prison Blues, Ring of Fire

CD Odyssey Disc 396: Johnny Cash

I’ve had a lovely and restful Sunday.  Earlier this afternoon Sheila and I watched “Thor” and we are just home from going to the theatre to see “The Avengers.”

I grew up reading The Avengers comic book, and it is a great that movie making technology can finally faithfully represent them in live action on the movie screen.

But this isn’t a movie review website it’s about music, so let’s get on with the show.   

Disc 396 is…American Recordings (I)

Artist: Johnny Cash

Year of Release: 1994

What’s Up With The Cover?:  Johnny stands in a field, with a guitar and what I assume are his favourite dogs.  I’m more of a cat person, but Johnny strikes a suitably imposing glower, so I’m not going to argue with him.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve known Johnny Cash since I was a kid, but I was introduced to the American  Recordings series late, when Volume IV (reviewed back at Disc 242) released a video for “Hurt.”  From there, it was just me drilling backward through the collection.

How It Stacks Up:  I have six Johnny Cash albums, but one is a live record and another is a best of.  The others are the aforementioned quartet of American Recordings.  Of those four, I’d put this one third.

Rating: 3 stars

For those who didn’t read my review of American Recordings IV, and can’t be bothered to click on the link above, these started when Cash was dumped by his old record label, picked up by American and through a very fortunate set of events, paired with brilliant producer, Rick Rubin.

Rubin’s greatest strength is his ability to get down to the essence of an artist, and cut away all the extraneous stuff that gets in the way of that artist’s work.  In the case of Johnny Cash, he strips everything away except Cash’s vocals and a single acoustic guitar.  The result is that you can focus on Cash doing what he does best, telling a story.

Sometimes that story features a character, like the Vietnam veteran struggling to assimilate years later, on “Drive On” and sometimes it is Cash being introspective about his own failures on “The Beast In Me.”

“The Beast In Me” is not written by Cash, but he channels his own troubled past so well into the lyrics it might as well have been.  The song begins with the ominous line:

“The beast in me

Is caged by frail and fragile bars.”

The song drips with Cash’s own regret, and you can’t help but feel that he is mentally going through all the people he hurt in his wild youth.  It is also a tale of caution for any listener who thinks that they are in full control of themselves, to be aware that our darker natures lurk in all of us, and how we’ll never keep them in check by pretending they’re not there.

Only four of the thirteen tracks are written by Cash, but they are generally some of the better ones, including the aforementioned “Drive On.”  He also writes a couple of spirituals, “Let The Train Blow the Whistle” and “Redemption” which are good regardless of what you believe.  The album opens with the fourth original, a song full of dark humour called “Delia’s Gone” about a man who hunts down an unfaithful woman and shoots her.

As is the case with a number of these American Recordings records, some of the song choices don’t work as well as they should.  In particular, I was surprised how little I liked Cash’s rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird On A Wire” which is a song that should be right in his wheelhouse.  It might just be that I’ve heard the Cohen version for so long I don’t like to hear it by anyone else (and yes, that includes Jennifer Warnes).

Also, surprisingly “Why Me Lord” drags a little, and doesn’t have that deep inspirational quality Cash usually has when he talks to God.  It is particularly surprising because “Why Me Lord” is a Kris Kristofferson song, and Cash has mined Kristofferson’s songs successfully many times over.

One song that only grew on me in the last hour or so was “Thirteen” which is a remake of a song originally by the metal band Danzig.  While writing this review, I went and looked up the original on youtube.  It is a great song, and hearing the original – which, yes, is better – it made me appreciate what Cash does with it, drawing out its sad melody and making it his own, as he always does with the songs he borrows.

Overall, this record has a feeling of an older artist making peace with himself, and it is interesting that he’d go one making that peace for another four records – all collaborations with Rubin.

More than any of the other of this series, this first record is the softest, and most understated, and it takes a few listens to get an ear for it.  Once you do, it won’t blow you away.  Instead, it will put you in a thoughtful and relaxed state where the simple beauty of Cash’s voice and guitar will steal its way into your heart.

Best tracks: Delia’s Gone, Let The Train Blow The Whistle, The Beast In Me, Drive On, Like A Soldier.

CD Odyssey Disc 242: Johnny Cash

In my last review I hoped for a little rock and roll, but instead I got a little country. That's OK, I'm a little bit rock and roll AND a little bit country.

Disc 242 is...American IV: The Man Comes Around
Artist: Johnny Cash

Year of Release: 2002

What’s Up With The Cover?: In case you're wondering, the cover makes it clear the album is by Johnny CASH. Also, there's a picture of him looking seasoned and thoughtful. This cover wisely doesn't try to do too much, and yet reminds you of Johnny Cash's iconic status.

How I Came To Know It: I've known Johnny Cash all my life (I grew up with my Mom playing his records), but this particular record came to my attention because of the incredible video for the song "Hurt" which introduced Cash to a whole new generation of fans.

How It Stacks Up: I have six Johnny Cash albums, four studio albums, one live and one 'best of'. Of the five that aren't 'best ofs', I would put this one third, or right in the middle.

Rating: 3 stars.

American recordings picked up Johnny Cash in the early nineties after he was dumped from his record label, Columbia (and a short stint at Mercury). This is the 4th such album, all produced by Rick Rubin. It is also the last record Cash released while alive (he died a year later). There is an American Recordings V, but it was released posthumously.

OK, enough with the post-modern blah blah blah - how's the music? In a word - uneven. In a few more words, brilliant in places and atrocious in others.

On the plus side, this album starts off with a couple five star tracks. The first is a Johnny Cash original, "The Man Comes Around" which is a fast paced folk song about the End of Days, and how we're all going to answer for our sins soon enough (Cash was an ardent Christian). Whether you think the End of Days is going to happen or not, this song does a fine job of making you feel that it is imminent.

My favourite image in the song is:

"And the whirlwind is in the thorn trees
The virgins are all trimming their wicks."

I'm not certain why the virgins are trimming their wicks, but it sounds ominous. And as for a whirlwind amidst a bunch of thorn trees - that's just dangerous.

"The Man Comes Around" was also famously used for the opening credits of the remake of "Dawn of the Dead", where it fits perfectly against a backdrop of television footage of the zombie apocalypse underway.

The next track was the one that reignited Cash's fame, a remake of the Nine Inch Nails song, "Hurt". I won't say much about this, since everyone knows it well enough. I'll just say that Cash takes a song originally about drug abuse and turns it into a song about growing old and fading into obscurity. He owns this song so completely, when I finally heard the original version I thought there was something wrong with it.

The album is mostly remakes, done with widely varying degrees of success. Another strong one is Cash doing a Sting song, "I Hung My Head" and although many don't like it, I'm also fond of his reimagining of the Depeche Mode song, "Personal Jesus" which Cash manages to strip of all sexual and ironic connotation. In his hands it just becomes a devotional to God.

Cash was obviously preparing for his departure with this record. His opening comments in the liner notes is about his relationship with God, and is too perfect a blend of earnestness and humour not to share:

"I am persuaded that nothing can separate me from my love of my God, my wife, and my music. Life is rich when I can come home, after hours in the studio, feeling as frayed as a hundred Big G strings, and curl up to June Carter...That's when I give God a "Thanks a lot, Chief." Sometimes in the morning I'll say, "Good Morning" to the Awesome Presence, but sometimes I forget to."

Unfortunately, for every brilliant reimagining of a song, "American IV" has one that is truly awful. "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", the Beatles' "In My Life" and "We'll Meet Again" may be old standards, but Johnny makes them feel positively ancient. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" isn't much better, and is made only slightly bearable by Cash's obviously honest rendition. It may be honest, but Art Garfunkel it is not.

Cash also remakes songs he sang when he was younger, including "Sam Hall" and "Streets of Laredo". Having grown up with the earlier versions, I was in a good position to make a direct comparison, and I am sad to say that while they are OK, these new versions don't stand up to the ones Cash did in his prime.

With some five star classics, and a few stink bombs, I decided to split the uprights on this one, and gave it 3 stars.

Best tracks: The Man Comes Around, Hurt, I Hung My Head, Personal Jesus