Album Review: Johnny Cash – Classic Cash: Hall of Fame Series

The Johnny Cash sound had come a long way since he started out in 1955. It began with the minimal sound of The Tennessee Two: Marshall Grant giving a tick-tock on acoustic bass, Luther Perkins playing minimal leads generally on the beat in the lower register of the guitar, and Cash often just raking across the strings of his acoustic guitar for a syncopated percussion effect. Altogether it became the “boom-chicka-boom” sound. 

It grew over time. Drums were introduced when Cash went from Sun to Columbia in 1959. That solidified when WS Holland joined the band in 1962, making it the Tennessee Three. Holland used very few cymbals, favouring a snare-heavy approach that made sure that Cash still sounded like noone else. 

Also, in the early 1960s, more acoustic was added, often played by touring mate Johnny Western, and then a succession of studio musicians. The Carter Family started providing a female chorus in the mid-1960s, followed by the addition of the Statler Brothers providing a male counterpoint. Then in 1965 the one-and-only Carl Perkins joined the band, providing hot lead guitar on top of Luther’s signature melodic lines. Still, the boom-chicka-boom sound was always there as the foundation. 

Into the 1970s, more acoustic guitar was added into the mix, then increased orchestrations, and ultimately consistent presence of piano, particularly when Larry Butler joined the group. The members of the band would evolve over time, but by the time Marty Stuart joined in 1980, there were now 8 players in the band (The Great Eighties Eight), not including the Carters and other background vocalists. Those numbers would continue to shift, but by the time we get to 1988’s Classic Cash, Johnny was in a very different sonic space compared to his origins with the Tennessee Two.  

On this “greatest hits” set, Cash revisits 20 of his hits with this new band. Why was it recorded? I’m not entirely sure. It’s subtitled the “Hall of Fame Series”, but there are no Mercury releases for other artists under this moniker, and Cash had already been in the Country Music Hall of Fame for eight years. Also, he had no shortage of other material. There were over a dozen leftovers from the Johnny Cash is Coming to Town sessions and he moved very quickly from these sessions in Fall 1987 to recording his duets album, Water From the Wells at Home. 

Nonetheless, Cash headed into the studio to quickly record those old numbers under the producing hand of his bass player, Jimmy Tittle. As his second album for Mercury, I can only assume the label wanted to cash in Johnny’s megahits. Indeed, the bulk of this material was recorded in a few days in October, with overdubs done in December. Very much a quick in-and-out with his touring band. 

I’ve critiqued other albums of the era for being mish-mash of generic 80s country and in that light, Classic Cash is a success. It indeed reorients the sound around the classic Boom Chicka Boom sound. Also, the orchestration on songs like Sunday Morning Coming Down is stripped of the lush strings. For me, that’s a good thing, but I know many fans who love the strings. 

Where the album fails, though, is that despite centring on the boom-chicka-boom sound, it’s never fully stripped back. Even on the clearest Luther-esque songs like Cry, Cry, Cry or Five Feet High and Rising, there’s always an acoustic guitar strumming in the background, a second lead guitar doing something else, and tinkling piano fading in and out. 

In terms of song choice, it emphasizes the Sun and early Columbia days. There are only two songs from the 1970s: Sunday Morning Coming Down and A Thing Called Love. I can’t really fault the songs that are here – all of them are indeed Classic Cash, from Folsom Prison Blues and I Walk the Line to Ring of Fire and Get Rhythm. But there’s a lot missing. The humour of A Boy Named Sue or One Piece at a Time. The raw humanity of Man in Black. The attitude of his 70s collaborations with Waylon Jennings. And even things like cowboy and train songs are underrepresented. 

But ultimately, it’s the music that fails. It’s not terribly overproduced compared to other 80s Cash fare like Rainbow or Heroes, and maybe that’s a result of it being produced by Cash with his bandmate. However, the arrangements lack any real flair or passion. Compare these to 1964’s I Walk the Line in which Cash reinterpreted his 50s hits with a 60s folk feel. Instead of trying to recreate the old sound with modern tools, he just did it differently. Peace in the Valley might be the one case where there is some reinvention, but it’s just turned into a generic piano gospel number. There’s simply a lack of creativity here, and I can’t help but feel that Johnny was uninspired here. 

For transparency’s sake, I usually listen to these albums at least five times before writing my review (on top of years of listening to them). I couldn’t get energized to listen to this more than once. But if you’re really keen on this album, there’s a remixed version on the Complete Mercury Recordings box set that has some of the 80s sheen removed… but it’s still the same album. 

2.5/5 

Other Songs from the Era: 

• Jesus Is Lord/Gospel Medley/How Beautiful Heaven Must Be/Lord I’m Coming Home –  Johnny joined his sister Joanne on this live album. Recorded in Oct. 1988, and released in 1989 on Joanne Cash Yates Live, another release on Jana records.  
• Will the Circle Be Unbroken/Life’s Railway to Heaven – two great singalongs on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken Vol. 2.  
• Ballad of Davy Crockett – Used to open the Wonderful World of Disney TV show in 1988 

Album Review: Johnny Cash – Ragged Old Flag

Released in 1974, Ragged Old Flag is a solid if unremarkable release for Cash, as would be a great deal of his remaining 1970s output. In the liner notes, Cash expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the release and the album is notable for being Johnny’s first release with all songs penned by himself.

The album is a classic example of his 70s sound. When Luther Perkins died in a house fire in 1968, he was replaced in the Tennessee Three (Marshall Grant and WS Holland) by Bob Wooten, but it should be noted that Carl “Blue Suede” Perkins joined the band at the same time and was still playing with Cash in ’74. That 70s Cash sound, then, was defined by the classic boom-chicka-boom drive, but now built upon dual lead guitar, and often acoustic guitar backing (here provided by Nashville session whiz Ray Edenton). Having built his home studio, House of Cash, in 1972, and now being clean and sober for a few years, Johnny also built a very laid-back feel into his 70s sound.

There are some new elements creeping into the sound, too. First, after a string of albums produced by gospel pianist Larry Butler, and then a brief reunion with his old producer Don Law, Cash self-produced this number with engineer Charlie Bragg, a collaboration that would carry on through the seventies. Second, he seems to have parted ways with the Statler Brothers and had talked up-and-coming gospel country quartet the Oak Ridge Boys into joining him on this release (they first appeared on Praise the Lord and Pass the Soup, a single-only release with him the year before). I find them far more tasteful than the brash Statler Brothers, and a welcome addition to Cash’s laid-back seventies feel.

So, what of the songs? The opening narrative, Ragged Old Flag, suggests that this album is going to be (another) reflection on the history of America. It speaks of a visitor to a town who inquires about the town flag which appears to be far past its prime. The narrator describes the trials the flag has seen, from the Civil War, through world wars, Korea, and now Vietnam. Importantly it hints at the turmoil America was facing in the wake of Watergate. Historical accuracy notwithstanding (the 50-star flag didn’t come about until 1960), it’s a poignant tale that re-affirms Johnny’s admiration for America’s strength of character (“she’s been through the fire before”) and his sadness over her moral failings.

The album quickly changes gear, though, indicating that this is not just “America” part two. The opening tune, which opens with military drums and ends with orchestral bombast, is revealed to be a live recording (actually recorded on Johnny’s front lawn for an audience of Columbia Records staff with Earl Scruggs on banjo). The remaining eleven tracks were all recorded inside and share that laid-back sound with more down-to-earth vocals.

The dominant picture of America is one of hard working people. All I Do is Drive puts in the seat of a long-haul trucker and gives us a magnificent harmony lead guitar part. Southern Comfort is a catchy waltz about love lost and found while working in a tobacco factory (the lost lover amusingly runs away for another kind of tobacco). King of the Hill opens with the Oak Ridge Boys’ rich harmonies and reflects on the struggle of working in a cotton mill. I’m a Worried Man was inspired by a phrase Johnny heard while at his vacation home in Jamaica, and speaks of the worries of providing for a family.

Elsewhere, there are songs of struggle. Lonesome to the Bone sees Johnny reinventing Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down. This time the morning hangover makes the narrator reminisce of love lost. Please Don’t Let Me Out is the obligatory prison song, and offers a new perspective – this time the prisoner is terrified at the thought of release, seeing the outside world as an unknown and frightful place.

While I’ve Got It On My Mind is unique in Johnny’s catalogue. Although not dirty like the unreleased early sixties’ ditty Lovin’ Locomotive Man, it finds Cash feeling randy for his woman.

The album also offers three gospel tunes. Where as in the sixties found Cash singing classic hymns, he’s now begun penning his own in a modern southern gospel style. In general the results aren’t pretty. Pie in the Sky (“There’ll be pie in the sky/by and by when I die/and it’ll be alright”) and Good Morning Friend (“Good morning friend, good morning friend/Yes, I’m feeling like a million since I’ve got you livin’ in) come across as trite and flimsy. The final tune, heard previously on his home recordings, comes across better. What on Earth (Will You Do for Heaven’s Sake) challenges the believer to have their faith make a difference in this world (rather than just waiting for the pie in the sky). He would revisit this one throughout his career and rightfully so.

That leaves one last song, and it’s the real highlight. Don’t Go Near the Water is an environmental song for the everyman, putting the emerging issue (at the time) of pollution into the everyday context of a father and son fishing together. It’s catchy and brilliant.

All in all, this is a fine album if you’re looking for that 70s Cash sound.

4/5

Other songs from the era:

• Virgie – A moving acoustic tribute to a friend of Johnny’s.  Released on Personal File.
• Kathy – another acoustic demo this one from the House of Cash Bonus CD.

Album Review: Johnny Cash – The Gospel Road

How do you review Johnny’s longest album, The Gospel Road – A Story of Jesus, Told and Sung by Johnny Cash? Even the title is exhausting!

This 1973 release is both a triumph and a tragedy. Even in his darkest years of addiction and isolation, Christianity was never far from Johnny’s heart. As he began rebuilding his life in the late 1960s, the faith of Johnny’s childhood became a driving force in his life.  By the early 1970s, he was a friend of evangelist Billy Graham (among others, including Hank Snow’s son), and felt an increasing passion to make a film about the life of his savior, Jesus Christ.

So here we have the fruit of his labour in the form of a 76-track soundtrack. As it turns out, this is less of a soundtrack and, instead, largely a rip of the film’s audio. The film is a fairly straightforward telling of Jesus’ life with Cash narrating, and a string of songs old and new tying the story together. It has none of the controversy of Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ, nor the shocking brutality of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. The tone here is one of reverence and warmth.

It was a triumph in that Cash actually managed to do it. Few would have the resources and wherewithal to film a full-blown religious movie in the Holy Land, particularly one with as  little film experience as Johnny Cash (he starred in a couple of b-movies). Moreover, we see in this depiction of Christ a friendliness exhibited through his relationships with the disciples and children. Cash often sang many gospel tunes of desperation, calling out to his Lord in a time of need, and it is the evocation of a compassionate God that really shines through here.

The tragedy, is that not only is the film rather dull (as movies of Jesus can be), but it never reached the wide audience he’d intended.  Cash had invested himself in large personal projects before, including his first gospel album Hymns, and the many historical concept albums he released in the 60s (Ballads of the True West, Bitter Tears…). In moving into the film world, though, he was moving way out his comfort zone. He cast too many friends in the film, resulting in wooden performances. Worse, though, Cash simply didn’t know the business of making movies, so when it was all wrapped (an accomplishment in itself considering it was filmed on location in Israel), he couldn’t find a distribution partner. Hoping it would be picked up by a Hollywood Studio and shown everywhere, he was eventually saved by his friend Billy Graham, whose organization picked up the film and used it as an evangelism tool. While Johnny had hoped to use the film to proclaim his Lord to the world, he had hoped to use traditional entertainment channels to reach a wider audience.

An even greater tragedy was the rift this experience caused with Cash’s long-time manager Saul Holiff. Holiff had carried Johnny through those darkest hours of the mid-late 60s, smoothing over relationships with promoters when Cash was a no-show or wasted on stage, and helping him rebuild his career through the prison albums and then his TV show. In the early 70s, though, Cash’s evangelistic bent strained the relationship with Holiff. Cash, and evidently June even moreso, became irritated that Holiff wouldn’t join them when they sang at a Billy Graham Crusade. In Holiff’s mind, there was nothing to manage – this wasn’t a paid performance, it was Johnny and June choosing to charity work they were passionate about. For Cash, though, it was a personal slight. When Johnny wanted to spend a fortune filming an unsellable movie about Jesus in Israel, one can imagine what Holiff’s response would have been. Sadly, this was the beginning of the end of their relationship, and by the end of 1973, Holiff “retired” from the music business and moved north to Canada.

What, then, of the music? Despite the endless number of tracks (76 on the CD issue, 77 on my LP), there are really only ten songs on here, several of which are drawn from Johnny’s back catalogue. Motifs from the tunes are used as background music throughout the film as well. Overall the music is what you would expect of Cash approaching gospel music in the early 70s. The Statler Brothers and Carter Family are featured frequently, providing a wall of harmonies. The backing is simple acoustic guitars on the quieter moments, and the tic-tock, boom-chicka-boom of the Tennesse Three (still with Carl Perkins) on the upbeat numbers. And there are strings everywhere. Thankfully, as with his previous album Any Old Wind That Blows, the strings are generally tasteful. After the overblown gospel choruses on A Thing Called Love, producer Larry Butler, now a Cash regular, seemed to find a balance between the Tennessee Three’s sound and larger orchestral arrangements that previous producers – Bob Johnston, Don Law, Frank Jones – could not.

What of the songs, then? Two we already know. He Turned the Water Into Wine was first recorded for 1968’s The Holy Land. It’s straightforward narrative of Jesus’ miracles is interspersed in four parts through the telling of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus Was a Carpenter, from 1970’s Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is also broken up, sung first as we approach the crucifixion, and then, powerfully, the last verse, which pulls Jesus’ story into a contemporary context, sung a cappella at the conclusion of the film.

A few tunes are heavy with narrative. Opener Praise the Lord works well, setting the powerful prophecy of Isaiah 9 (“A people that once walked in darkness have seen a great light…”) to an acoustic backing. The Last Supper is less so. The Statlers join in and the song builds from a cappella to full band, but the clumsy telling of the Last Supper is forgettable. Children, too, is a forgettable number, despite being drawn from one of the more enjoyable scenes of the film.

The rest of the material, though, is quite good. Gospel Road is a fun boom-chicka-boom number that sets the tone for Jesus’ travelling preaching, and is in many ways a gospel version of Ride This Train. I See Men as Trees Walking (debuted a year earlier at the Jesus Explosion festival) is a fun, upbeat telling of a blind man healed by Jesus. Follow Me is a beautiful recasting of the John Denver classic, with June Carter singing it as Mary Magdalene. Hearing the song in a new context is wonderfully refreshing.

Then we are left with the two most powerful numbers on the album. Help Me is a Larry Gatlin number which fits Cash’s religious view well. Here we have a simple ballad of a man crying out to God sungin parts by Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Larry Gatlin. The second part – a stripped down verse with only Kristofferson – works best thanks to its simplicity and heartfelt performance. Then we have Kristofferson’s own Burden of Freedom. Another acoustic ballad, it is also broken into segments. The final verse is sung by Cash in what might be his most frail vocal performance until his Rick Rubin recordings decades later. As Jesus is crucified, Cash’s voice breaks:

Lord, help me to shoulder the burden of freedom
And give me the courage to be what I can

This is truly one of the most powerful moments in Cash’s vast discography.

Evaluating this album, then, is a difficult task. Despite some excellent music, as a whole, the album doesn’t work. I find the mood changes too abrupt – the first LP is light and buoyant, gurgling along with Perkins guitar through the Gospel Road. The second LP is heavy with narrative of Jesus’ death, bogged down by overwrought musical backing. Listening to the full set in one listen is a long haul. What would have worked far better would be a true soundtrack: “Songs from The Gospel Road.” An abridged narration by Johnny (similar to Ride This Train or America) could have tied the songs together and told the story in a far more efficient manner than simply handing over the entire film’s dialogue. It would also allow us to hear each song in their entirety rather than chopped up verse by verse.

At the end of the day, the songs are good, but the album is not… a triumph and a tragedy in one.

3/5

Album Review: Johnny Cash – The Johnny Cash Family Christmas

Each of Johnny Cash’s four Christmas albums gives a clear evocation of his life at the time.  The Christmas Spirit, released in 1963, was a lonesome affair, so chilly that you can almost feel the wind whipping across the barren fields of Johnny’s Arkansas youth.  By 1972, life had changed dramatically for Cash. He had risen through the dark years of the drug-addled 60s, and emerged clean(er), happily married, the father of a new son, and with a renewed faith in tow.   If ever there was a calm period in Cash’s life, this was it.

As the title implies, The Johnny Cash Family Christmas is all about family and for anyone who’s seen Johnny’s 1969-71 variety show, he regarded his whole travelling entourage as his family.  This album, then, is really like sitting in the middle of the living room with Johnny’s crew trading Christmas songs and stories.  Where the sound of Christmas Spirit was big and echoed, this one is warm and friendly. For once, Cash was at home in his own skin, and he wanted to welcome the world into that life.

Apart from a few classics – Jingle Bells, Silent Night – these songs are mostly originals sung by the respective writers.  Most of the tunes, though are throwaways.  Johnny’s little brother Tommy sings a sweet, but forgettable number about old downhome Christmases in That Christmasy Feeling.  Carl Perkins, recites a spoken narrative about being a father, accompanied by a Larry Butler-led piano rendition of What a Friend We Have in Jesus.  Larry takes a moment in the spotlight with the schmaltzy instrumental My Merry Christmas Song.  If you like “special music” during the offering at your local evangelical church, this one will be for you.  If not, you’ll probably skip this one. Statler Brother Lew Dewitt sings a brief and forgettable ballad too – An Old Fashioned Tree.

Thankfully, there are some highlights too, and more often than not, they’re thanks to Johnny’s wife June.  She and Mother Maybelle Carter give a hilarious introduction to the banjo-led romp Christmas Time’s a Comin’. She and Johnny share a sweet, if somewhat trite, ballad on Christmas With You, that is one of their finer moments on record together. And it was she who penned with Jan Howard the highlight of the album: Christmas as I Knew it.  This one’s a stirring narrative of Johnny’s childhood Christmases and the introduction by his own mother lets you know that when he sings of poverty he knows what he’s talking about.

The rest of the album is pleasant enough. Jingle Bells is lighthearted and fun. Silent Night is touchingly reverent with everyone joining in.  Merry Christmas Mary shows off Cash’s famous baritone. And Cash’s rendition of Statler Brother Harold Reid’s King of Love is a moving ballad that speaks to the heart of Christmas, tying Christmas and Easter together:

 Jesus died the world was dark
Not a sound was there to hark
The breath was gone, He hung His head
But wait, let us rejoice

For He has risen from the dead
He was a child, He was a son
He was a man among men
He was a friend, He was a Saint
He was The King of Love

Too bad the Statlers had to join in on backing vocals – I still can’t stand their over-the-top harmonies!

Perhaps the real treat, though, are the dialogue segments woven between the songs.  Here we get to listen in on Carl telling stories of lighting firecrackers and Harold reminiscing about his drunk uncle. Most importantly, though, are the stories of bassist Marshall Grant and others about the simple Christmases they lived through in the rural South, particularly in the depression.  These tales of another era are true gems. While they sound like they’re relaxing in Johnny’s posh Hendersonville living room, we’re reminded of just how far these men and women had come.

As it turns out, this was really the eye of the storm of Cash’s life.  By the end of the decade, Jan would join the Carter Family band and allegedly have an affair with Johnny. Marshall Grant would be fired after 25 years of service. And, sadly, the drugs would return.  But here we have a moment of peace, listening to Johnny enjoy Christmas with family and friends.  The album’s not perfect, but it evokes a time and place.

For the most part, I find this one hard to listen to shuffled with other Christmas albums, but as a whole, it’s nice to pull out every year or two as a Christmas nugget.

Probably a 3 or 3.5 out of 5, but because I’m all of a sudden in the Christmas spirit, I’ll give it a 4/5.

Other songs from the era:

• I See Men as Trees Walking (Live) – In 1972 Campus Crusade for Christ, an emerging evangelical organization still active today, organized hosted Explo 72, a week-long conference in Dallas that culminated in an eight-hour concert attracting 100-200,000. Johnny and Kris Kristofferson were on the bill, but so too were Andrae Crouch and Larry Norman. Many today regard this as the beginning of the “Jesus music” movement and ultimately what has become “CCM” – contemporary Christian music. A soundtrack ensued which features a live of version of this tune from Johnny’s yet-to-be-released Jesus project, The Gospel Road.  The sound quality’s not great, but Johnny’s band is cracking, and his performance, including a brief sermon, is heartfelt. Available on the out-of-print LP “Jesus Sound Explosion” and often on YouTube.
• Live in the Netherlands – Never released, but widely available as a bootleg, is this fine example of Cash’s early 70s live sound. His band and voice were in fine form and the setlists were great integrating oldies (I Walk the Line, Orange Blossom Special) and his newer narrative-oriented gems (Sunday Morning Coming Down, If I Were A Carpenter).

Album Review: The Johnny Cash Show – Johnny Cash

The Johnny Cash Show was a strange beast.  Debuting as summer-season filler in 1969, it found an audience and stuck around until 1971, ultimately becoming a victim of the “rural purge” which eliminated a host of classic rural-themed TV shows from the big networks’ rosters.  Over 58 episodes, though, America was able to tune in for an evening of music filmed at the great Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.  What’s particularly surprising about the show, though, is that despite the expected accoutrements of an early 70s variety show – orchestral arrangements, women in dresses with big poufy shoulders, garish sets – Johnny brought an incredibly diverse set of guests onto his stage.

Where the show was expansive, however, the 1970 album The Johnny Cash Show provides an enjoyable, but ultimately narrow view of Cash’s foray into television.  Clocking in at under 29 minutes with only six songs, it’s a slight one, too, and all of them are Cash solo numbers, missing out on the many one-of-a-kind duets viewers came to expect each week.

Despite the limited scope of the album, each song has been carefully chosen. At the centre of each side is a version of Come Along and Ride This Train, a feature akin to Cash’s 1960 album Ride This Train.  Following a quick run through of the central melody (studio versions of which have emerged in recent years), Cash sings a medley of songs about the America he loves so dearly: the fading world of small towns, working-class cities, and the roads, rails, and people who tie them all together.  Side one’s medley ties together three trucking songs: Six Days on the Run, Tom T. Hall’s There Ain’t No Easy Run, and Merle Travis’ Sailor on a Concrete Sea.  It’s an upbeat collage that brings Cash’s love for train songs into a more modern context.  Side two gives us a more reflective narrative of another go-to-theme for Cash: the cotton fields.  We’re given Harlan Howard’s Mississippi Delta Land, Mel Tillis’ lament of the cotton worker who’s moved north for work, Detroit City, and then the nostalgic Uncloudy Day and No Setting Sun.

Each side closes with an inspirational piece drawn from past gospel albums of Johnny’s, both employing spoken-word introductions.  These Hands is the soft ballad of an old man reflecting with pride on his simple, but powerful legacy, and it outdoes the original (found on 1961’s Hymns from the Heart) if only for Cash’s impassioned vocal.  Here Was a Man is a poetic tribute to Jesus first recorded on 1963’s The Christmas Spirit.  Johnny’s deep baritone delivery is magical, although the syrupy strings detract.

It is the opening tracks, however, that are best remembered from this release.  Sunday Morning Coming Down is Johnny’s second recording of a Kris Kristofferson song, and this time he nails it perfectly.  Despite the somewhat overbearing orchestration, it remains to this day the perfect hangover song.  As the opener to an album that is sentimental and at times preachy, it reminds the listener of just who is doing the preaching.  Johnny aspired to greatness, both as a man and an artist, but also wore his failings on his sleeve.  It’s his humility that I’ve always found so inspiring.  The song went to number 1 on the country charts and deservedly so.

The opener for Side 2- I’m Gonna Try to Be That Way – can easily be overshadowed by the great Sunday Morning, which is a tragedy.  A Cash original, it fills out the narrative arc of the album.  Johnny had a special way of making you feel like he really understood your troubles.  On a song like I’m Gonna Try, he reminds you of the goodness found in Jesus:

He never done anybody wrong, He tried to help everybody ‘long, He brought a better land to make a better man, Out of the rich or the poor, Or the weak or the strong

And he preached love and brotherhood, He went around doin’ good, doin’ good, Everywhere he went, They knew that he was sent, And the people started actin’ like they should

As Johnny sang about his simple faith and how he was going to do his best to follow his saviour, he made you feel like you might be able to do the same, too.  Despite the corny trumpets that intrude towards the end, it’s still a special tune.

This album has its flaws.  It’s too short.  The orchestration, typical of an early 70s variety show, gets in the way of the songs.  It only shows one side of the Johnny Cash Show.  Yet, it has its own charm, it’s well structured, and what songs it does have are all great.  In Cash’s massive catalogue, it’s not essential, but it is unique.

3.5/5

Other Songs from the Era:

• The Best of the Johnny Cash Show: In 2007 a 16-track CD was released featuring highlight performances from the show’s run.  This CD is a much better representation of the show than the 1970 LP.  It’s got Cash singing his hits (Ring of Fire, Flesh and Blood), and others’ (I’ve Been Everywhere), plus doing some of the classics with the Statler Brothers and the Carter Family (Belshazzar, Daddy Sang Bass).  Then, it throws in some solo performances by the stars who graced his stage, and a wonderful duet with Joni Mitchell on Girl from the North Country.  A two-disc DVD expanded this to a full 66-song set (and swapped Joni’s duet on North Country for Bob Dylan’s – they’re both amazing).  As you explore the number of artists who performed on Johnny’s show, you get a real sense of what he was trying to do.  All of the country greats were there: Tammy Wynette, George Jones, a hilarious Roy Clark, Bobby Bare, Conway Twitty, Marty Robbins, the Everly Brothers, Ray Price, Chet Atkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, and Bill Monroe.  They’re all in fine form, particular Glen Campbell’s glorious Wichita Lineman.  Then there’s the new breed of singer-songwriters Johnny loved so much: Tony Joe White, Kris Kristofferson, Linda Ronstadt, Hank Williams Jr., James Taylor, and Waylon Jennings.  He also moves beyond Nashville to those long-haired rock and roll freaks: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and CCR.  I love in particular how he brings in African-American artists who only a short while ago would have been banned from Ryman’s all-white stage: Stevie Wonder (who plays drums on Get Rhythm!) and the great Louis Armstrong (who, with Johnny, recreates a 1930 session he played on with Jimmie Rogers; the sight of Louis in a 10-gallon hat is unforgettable!).  Although Cash was a country artist, he saw no boundaries.  This was no more apparent than in his stunning duet on Worried Man Blues with Pete Seeger.  Godfather of modern folk music he may be, but I often find Pete’s rigid stance on so many issues to be offputting.  Here though, he offers a masterclass in showmanship and musicianship.  Johnny nad Pete together are wonderful.  And somehow, Cash manages to get his middle-American audience to gobble up the melodies of America’s most famous lefty!  The CD and DVD are great, but in the age of YouTube, somewhat irrelevant.  For every great performance on here, there’s another omitted: The Monkees in full comedic form; a very psychedelic The Guess Who interspersed with Johnny’s What is Truth; and a to-die-for guitar jam session between Jose Feliciano, Carl Perkins and Merle Travis. A complete remastered box set is needed!
• This Land is Your Land – Like so many of the performances on The Johnny Cash Show, it starts out well with just Johnny on acoustic guitar.  Then the strings come in… oh well.  Still worth a listen.  Available on Johnny Cash’s America (and the Best of Johnny Cash Show DVD).
• Christmas as I Knew It – Johnny released this song twice, first on 1963’s The Christmas Spirit, and later on 1972’s Family Christmas.  A 1970 recording from his show, however, went unreleased until the compilation Christmas with Johnny Cash was released.  He obviously loved this narrative of his childhood Christmas memories.  This version might just be the best as the strings are thankfully restrained, allowing his booming baritone to lead the way.

Album Review: At Madison Square Garden – Johnny Cash

Recorded live in December, 1969, but not released until 2002, At Madison Square Garden documents Cash at the height of his commercial, and arguably artistic, success. After a few less-than impressive studio albums, Johnny hit record-setting numbers with 1968’s live album At Folsom Prison and the 1969 follow-up At San Quentin. In summer 1969, ABC took a gamble and gave Cash a variety show, which became a minor hit. Cash seemed to take particular pride in mixing Hollywood stars and country legends with the songwriters his friends in Nashville usually cast off as long-haired freaks – Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Linda Rondstadt, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot. Johnny’s personal life was on a roll too: drugs were out of his life, and his new bride June Carter Cash missed this show because she was six-months pregnant with their future son, John.

It is in this context that we’re given a 22-song set (plus 4 more songs from his entourage) which reveal a different side of Johnny from the wild and raucous prison albums. That said, New York is not known as a country music town and might be just as strange a place to record a Cash live album as a prison. What Cash proves over 77 minutes is that he was a consummate performer and storyteller, able to engage any audience anywhere.

After his traditional set opener, Big River, Cash quickly proves that he is going to take a different approach from his recent prison albums. On those prison stages, Cash won the audience over by entering their world:

“Well, the song of the prisoner is a kind of a sad song… I asked a man on death row what it was like being on death row, living life on death row, he said, ‘Hell, man, it ain’t like nothing. You don’t live for tomorrow or next month or next month, ‘cause you don’t that you got tomorrow or next week or next month, so you live for today. And that’s a kind of a lonely life.”

He made each and every convict feel as if he knew their loneliness. On At Madison Square Garden, however, he invites the audience to enter his world:

“Thank you very much, it’s good to be with you in New York… you know, we come from the flat, black, delta land in Arkansas… and, after I got into the music field and started writing and recording and singing songs about the things I knew, I wrote a lot of songs about life as I knew it as a little, bitty boy.”

Cash structures his set, then, like one of his travelogue LPs, guiding the audience through places and stories, interspersing the hits amongst clusters of thematically-grouped songs:

• Songs of Country Life: I Still Miss Someone/Five Feet High and Rising/Pickin’ Time all carry a strong note of Cash reminiscing on simpler times in his childhood home of Dyess, Arkansas.
• Songs of War: Cash had recently played for the troops in Vietnam and he was deeply affected by the experience (see below). He recasts Remember the Alamo and the folk tune Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream to protest the war. His introduction to Alamo is stirring: “History lesson, 1835… 180 Americans against 5,000. Mr. President, that’s the kind of odds we got today.” He then goes on to play the definitive version of the tune. With the military drums stripped away, it’s far more stirring than his studio version.

A whiplash version of Wreck of the Old ’97 – a song which doesn’t seem to have left his set since the day he wrote – makes sure things don’t get too dour.

• Songs of the Prisoner: Cash sings a trio of ballads, The Long Black Veil/The Wall/Send a Picture of Mother, which challenge the listener to look at these men and women with compassion. Another roaring version of Folsom Prison Blues, and Cash walks offstage for a break (as the band plays an extended outro).

During his break, Johnny’s touring entourage play their hits: Carl Perkins plays a by-the-book Blue Suede Shoes, The Statler Brothers play their cheesy hit Flowers on the Wall, and the Carter Family sing Wildwood Flower and Worried Man Blues. With June back at home, it’s wonderful to hear Mother Maybelle be the focus once again. Cash then returns to fire through a Boy Named Sue and Cocaine Blues. Interestingly, the biggest cheers of the night erupt in the first line of Sue, demonstrating just what a hit it had become for Cash. Sadly, it would be one of his last truly monumental singles. In this version, Cash hilariously censors himself with a “beep”, and then turns around and quips, “You can’t say ‘son of a bitch’ on stage.”

• Songs of Justice: Cash introduces Jesus Was a Carpenter, a new song from his forthcoming LP, Hello, I’m Johnny Cash, that places Jesus in the social turmoil of the late 60s. He then turns to two of his great narratives on the plight of the Native American, The Ballad of Ira Hayes and As Long as the Grass Shall Grow. Despite only singing the first two verses of As Long…, he delivers them with a deep, mourning passion, pausing emphatically as he sings of Indian graveyards flooded by the Allegheny River dam.

Sing a Travelin’ Song is another new one, this time written by his sister-in-law Helen Carter’s son Kenny who was killed in a car accident earlier that year at the age of 16. Despite his young age, this lonesome tune would have been worthy of any of Cash’s Sun releases.

• Songs of Faith: Cash concludes his show by drawing the audience into the world of his simple faith. As with San Quentin, his tales of his recent tour of Israel are far warmer in person than on the studio LP, The Holy Land. He Turned the Water into Wine/Were You There/Daddy Sang Bass all paint a picture of a man seeking humble solace in the story of Jesus.

With that, the whole group joins him for a medley of hits – including snippets of Ring of Fire and I Walk the Line – and Johnny then closes the evening with his 1959 lullaby of life back home, Suppertime. From beginning to end, it’s a brilliant set that both appeases and challenges the listener. With Bob Wooten settling into his role in the famed Tennessee Three following the death of guitarist Luther Perkins, the music is wonderfully played. While it lacks the amphetamine-induced wildness of early 60s sets, and the on-the-edge feeling of the prison concerts, this release sits shoulder-to-shoulder with the greatest releases in Cash’s canon.

5/5

Other Releases from the Era:

• Live at Annex 14 NCO Club – In At Madison Square Garden, Cash comments on his recent tour of Vietnam. Finally, on Bootleg Vol. III, Columbia has given us his live set played before the troops! His autobiographies document the difficulty he had playing this show – the trip left him with a blistering fever – yet Cash wouldn’t let anything stop him from entertaining these men he respected so deeply. We have a 9-song set full of hits: Big River/Wreck of the Old ‘97/Tennessee Flat Top Box/Remember the Alamo/Cocaine Blues/Jackson/Long-Legged Guitar Pickin-Man/Ring of Fire/Daddy Sang Bass. The sound quality is lacking, but not bad for something recorded in a war zone over 40 years ago! None of these are definitive versions, but they are essential for fans wanting to hear more of Johnny’s astounding ability to connect with people wherever he went.
• Girl from the North Country – In 1969, Bob Dylan released Nashville Skyline, one of many albums in which he made a major stylistic shift from his past. The album opens with a glorious re-imagining of a tune from his debut album, this time a duet with Cash. Their admiration for one another was already documented. Here, their duet is wild, ragged, and absolutely unforgettable.
• I Still Miss Someone/Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right/Understand Your Man/One Too Many Mornings/Mountain Dew/Careless Love/Matchbox/That’s All Right, Mama/Mystery Train/This Train is Bound for Glory/Big River/Girl From the North Country (Rehearsal)/I Walk the Line/Guess Things Happen that Way/Five Feet High and Rising/You Are My Sunshine/Ring of Fire/Wanted Man/Amen/Just a Closer Walk with Thee/Jimmie Rodgers Medleys 1&2 (Including Blue Yodel No 1 (T for Texas), the Brakeman’s Blues, Blue Yodel No 5(It’s Raining Here), Waiting for a Train)/Folsom Prison Blues – For many years, bootlegs documented the fun, casual singalongs Cash and Dylan ran in the studio to get to the Girl from the North Country duet. A version of One Too Many Mornings was seen in the 1969 Johnny Cash! The Man, His World, His Music made-for-TV documentary. Finally in 2019, we got proper documentation of these sessions across two discs in Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 15: Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969. If these aren’t enough, every single last take of these songs is available on the ultra-rare 50th Anniversary Collection 1969, a highly limited 2019 CD release to extend Columbia’s copyright on these sessions.
• Girl from the North Country (Live) – Dylan appeared on Cash’s TV show in the summer of 1969. His set comprised two solo numbers and a masterful live version of Girl from the North Country. The duet and I Threw It All Away are on the Best of the Johnny Cash TV Show DVD, and all three tracks are now on Dylan’s Bootleg VOl. 15.
• Six White Horses – A beautiful acoustic demo recorded by Cash, this song was a tribute to JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Cash’s brother Tommy had a hit with it that same year. Available on Bootleg Vol. II.
• Come Along and Ride This Train – Cash took his 1960 concept album Ride This Train as a model for a series of story-based medleys he played on many episodes of The Johnny Cash Show. Each version was a unique set of stories threaded together by this new tune. Two versions of this song were recorded, an acoustic demo, as well as full-band, boom-chicka-boom version. Both are wonderful, yet unreleased. The demo is available on Bootleg Vol. II. The studio version is on Johnny Cash’s America (not to be confused with the 1972 album America).

Album Review: The Holy Land – Johnny Cash

The Holy Land is another unique entry in Johnny Cash’s discography.  Released in early 1969, Cash’s life was turning in a big way.  He had kicked his drug addiction and married June Carter after a long affair.  His career was picking up to, thanks to the success of live album At Folsom Prison.  In the midst of it all, he took some time off in 1968 to visit Israel and tour a number of key biblical sites.  It was that tour that inspired this, his third gospel album.

While the trip may have been personally inspiration, and likely a much-cherished time of respite for the newlyweds, the album lacks the energy of the great Cash albums.  What Cash has provided is a hybrid of two musical formats he adored: the gospel album and the travelogue.  On either count, though, he has done better.

As a gospel album, The Holy Land is a mixed bag.  We’re offered eight tunes, five of them penned by Cash, only a few of which actually give a picture of Israel.  Land of Israel is the first, and it’s a syrupy ballad overblown with sweeping strings and the dread vibraphone that ruined Hymns from the Heart.  Nazarene and He Turned the Water, on the other hand, succeed as catchy, upbeat tunes telling the story of Jesus to a classic boom-chicka-boom rhythm.  Notable on these tunes is the presence of Carl Perkins who, as on Cash’s last two studio albums, provides glorious lead guitar.  The final tune about Israel, however, fails to convince.  Come to the Wailing Wall is a disjointed tune with a prolonged introduction that stumbles into a brief, stilted documentation of the last remaining wall of the second Jerusalem temple.

The remaining songs actually have little to do with Israel itself, but many work on their own as gospel tunes.  The Fourth Man, written by Arthur Smith, is another spritely tune about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were thrown into a fire for being faithful to the God of Israel while in Babylonian captivity.  It would make a great Sunday school tune if not for the overwrought backing vocals by the Statler Brothers.  The Ten Commandments tells another classic Bible story, this one set in the desert before the Israelites entered the promised land.  Written by Statler Brother Lew DeWitt, this one is marred by a brash string arrangement.  Cash did well to crib the melody for Starkville City Jail, later that year.

It is the remaining two songs, then, that remain as classics, even if they don’t speak to the Holy Land per se.  Daddy Sang  Bass was the Carl Perkins-penned #1 hit for Cash that perfectly blended nostalgia for old-time religion with a rockin’ guitar shuffle.  Drawing on “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” as its central motif, the song will make even an atheist want to head down to a tent revival.  God is Not Dead is a quiet acoustic tune marking Cash’s bold faith.  In a time when many were walking away from faith (as they continue to do today), Cash calls for a simple religion based in love and charity: “It isn’t God, but man that’s dead when love is locked outside.”  It’s the type of message he would turn to increasingly in the 1970s.

As a travelogue, the album is less successful.  Recorded on cassette as Johnny, June and their guide travelled throughout Israel, it’s much like sitting through someone’s vacation photos.  The professionally-recorded Ride This Train fares much better as a travelogue.  While Johnny and June are certainly sincere, the quality is simply lacking.  Likewise, as mentioned above, many of the songs aren’t even set in the Holy Land.  More appropriate songs could have been chosen.

The album remains important, however, for several reasons.  First, it documents the positive direction in which Cash’s personal life was heading.  Second, it is the last album he would record with Luther Perkins before his tragic death in a house fire, and, when the strings and choirs ease off, the interplay of the Tennessee Three with Carl Perkins on lead guitar is fanastic.  Last, when it works, this album really does work.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of dross to wade through for, essentially, five good songs: Nazarene, He Turned the Water, Daddy Sang Bass, The Fourth Man, and God is Not Dead.  If you manage to have an original vinyl pressing, though, you can admire the cool 3-D record jacket while you wait for the good parts.

3.5/5

 

Album Review: At Folsom Prison – Johnny Cash

At Folsom Prison is both the easiest and hardest of Johnny Cash’s albums to review. Easy because if you only own one Cash album, it’s this one. In fact, if you only own one country album, or perhaps even only one live album, this is the one. Simply put, this record encapsulates everything there is to know about Cash – the rebel, the country boy, the lover, the loser, the entertainer and the religious devotee. The performances are raw and visceral, yet tender and personal at the same time. From start to finish, the album is bursting with electricity.

The hard part comes in getting to what makes this album so special. From start to finish, there’s not a dull track. Recorded live in California’s infamous Folsom Prison, Johnny actually played two sets that day, one in the morning, the other around lunch time. Here Cash is backed by his regular touring entourage: The Tennessee Three (Marshall Grant, WS Holland and Luther Perkins), his girlfriend (and soon to be fiancée, then wife) June Carter, the Statler Brothers. Years on the road with this group meant they were comfortable playing together even if it was first thing in the morning in front of a group of convicts. The recent of addition Carl “Blue Suede Shoes” Perkins on guitar alongside Luther (unrelated) meant some hot licks could be expected on top of the Three’s steadfast boom-chicka-boom backing.

The first set features just Johnny and the Tennessee Three. Not surprisingly, they come blazing out of the gate with Cash’s early hit, Folsom Prison Blues, and here it bristles and cracks with violence appropriate for a song about shooting a man just to watch him die. In an instant, they have spun around for a couple of ballads – Dark as the Dungeon which applies equally to prisoners as it does to coal moaners, and the soft longing of I Still Miss Someone – which are played with such emotion that it’s hard to imagine even this rough-and-tumble audience losing attention for even a moment. He then rips into Cocaine Blues which is so fiery it makes his 1960 studio recording (the censored Transfusion Blues) entirely irrelevant, and then has the gall to sing the brutally dark-humoured gallows tale, 25 Minutes to Go, to a room full of convicts. They don’t seem to mind, in fact, they absolutely love it, cheering at every spare moment in the music. Only then do they take a moment’s rest, long enough for Johnny to joke about playing the “harmoni-cai” for their 1965 hit Orange Blossom Special. Again, they wipe the floor with the studio version, Holland’s drums whip-cracking like a runaway train.

From there, the band is dismissed and Johnny plays a few tunes on his acoustic guitar. The heartbreak is palpable in the Long Black Veil (another gallows tune!), and Send a Picture of Mother (another prison tune!), and yet it seems entirely natural for him to crack jokes about the prison’s drinking water. Cash had a magical ability to bridge the reverent and the ridiculous, and his charm very quickly wins the audience over. The acoustic set continues with the prison escape tale The Wall, and the hilarious Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog and the then-unreleased Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart. By now, the audience is eating out of Cash’s hand!

The band returns for a duet with June, the tempestuous cheatin’ tune, Jackson. Johnny and June had an incredible rapport on stage and you can imagine how the prisoners would react to such a beautiful, feisty woman teasing Johnny mere feet from them!

He then begins rounding third base. First it’s the tender Give My Love to Rose, followed by the upbeat hit prison lament, I Got Stripes. Incredibly, stripped of the big studio echo, the Statler Brothers actually sound good behind Cash. The concert then ends on a meditative note, first with the reminiscent Green, Green Grass of Home, and finally with a song Cash wrote by putting to words a lyric written by one of the prisoners: Greystone Chapel. Having gone through an epiphany of his own only a year earlier, following a near suicide, he sings a convict’s revelation: “Inside the walls of prison my body may be/but the Lord has set my soul free.” On this last track, everyone’s clapping, the band is singing, and Carl’s playing some rocking lead, turning a prison cafeteria into a religious revival if only for a few, fleeting minutes. With a brief instrumental and some closing announcements from the Warden, the prisoners are sent back to their cells, and the whole thing is forgotten. Except that it’s not. Newly sober and reinvigorated, Johnny had the foresight to bring in the adventuresome Bob Johnston to record this concert and make sure it would last forever. Thank God he did.

5+/5

Other Songs from the Era:

• 1999 Legacy Edition – In 1999, the album was re-released with several bonus tracks. These include a great version of Busted, an acoustic Joe Bean, a full-band version of John Henry’s Hammer played by request, plus some salty dialogue inappropriate for a 1968 release. These only make a perfect album better.
• 2008 Legacy Box Set – In 2008, the album was released again as a two-disc set revealing the bigger picture behind the concert. What Sony has provided are both the morning and noon-hour sets in their entirety, and they play quite differently from the edited live album. Instead of a straight Cash concert, we get the full travelling roadshow feel of his performances. The first concert opens with Carl Perkins playing Blue Suede Shoes, followed by a Statler Brothers number. The crowd suitably warmed up, Cash comes out for a 19-song set, most of which was used for the album. Left out is a great version of Hank Snow’s “I’m Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail”, in which Cash flubs the last verse, and a second duet with June, their silly take on Ray Charles’ I Got a Woman (in which June flubs a verse). We’re also given “June’s Poem” which highlights what an entertainer she was in her own right. The second set finds Cash a little more tired. He trims his set to 16 tunes, looking to his entourage to fill out the hour. Carl plays three tunes – this time adding The Old Spinning Wheel and Matchbox – as do the Statlers, including their big hit Flowers on the Wall. Johnny adds Give My Love to Rose and I Got Stripes (both of which were included on the original album, but not the first set), and drops several ballads: Long Black Veil, Send a Picture, The Wall. The songs they messed up the first time around are cut, too. June gets another moment in the sun, though, this time with Long Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man – her growls and Carl’s blistering leads are absolute gold. Why it was left off the 1999 release, I can’t imagine! (Check out their similar 1969 performance caught on film at Cummins Prison on YouTube.) To round it out, they take two stabs at the new Greystone Chapel to ensure they have a version fit for the record, but it was the first set’s take that was used in the end anyways. The Box Set is just as it should be for completists: complete from start to finish. Casual listeners will prefer one of the single-disc versions, though.
• The Folk Singer – The live version of Folsom Prison Blues was released as a single with this new track as a b-side. It’s unlike anything else Cash had ever recorded, sounding more like a San Francisco protest song, portraying the folk singer as a modern prophet. It’s interesting, but not essential. Available on Singles, Plus.

Album Review: Carryin’ On with Johnny Cash and June Carter

1966’s Happiness is You found Cash beginning divorce proceedings with his wife, and singing of happiness he had found in someone else.  With his divorce nearly finalized, Johnny went very public in 1967 with the double-entendre album title Carryin’ On, an album full of duets with his new love, June Carter.  Credited to both of them, this 11-song album is a mixed-bag of performances, some absolutely breathtaking, others truly embarrassing.  The true spirit of the album is these two lovers having a lot of fun together.

Included in the album is their 1965 hit, Bob Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe, originally released on Orange Blossom Special.  That song’s big arrangement, with harmonica and mariachi trumpets, differs greatly from the sonics found on the rest of this album.  What it does do, however, is lay the groundwork for the type of duet the two would master over the course of their decades-long careers.  For the most part, this album is a stripped-back version of Cash and Carter’s travelling show.  The Tennessee Three are brought to the fore, the Statler Brothers are (thankfully!) left behind, and friends Carl Perkins, Bob Johnson, and Norman Blake add tasteful solo instruments to mix up the sound here and there.

The album’s two sides mirror each other, both opening with a fiery single, and closing with a Ray Charles cover.  The singles are both amazing. Side One’s Long Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man, written by Cash’s bass player Marshall Grant, features some hot lead guitar, and June’s greatest on-record growls.  The lyrics – John: “You big mouthed woman,” June: “You long legged guitar pickin’ man” – highlight the fiery relationship that had grown between the two.  Side Two’s opener, Jackson, is even better.  Not much can be said except that this is perhaps the greatest cheatin’ song ever, crackling from start to finish.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for the closers.  While June’s sense of humour is enjoyable on the Charles sides, Johnny’s delivery is stiff and awkward.  I’m sure they had great fun singing along to these tunes on the tour bus, and Cash’s embrace of R&B is admirable for a 60’s country star, these should have been left on the cutting room floor. Plus, hearing a Ray-esque Wurlitzer electric piano on a Cash track is just wrong.

Elsewhere, the album includes five songs written individually or collaboratively by Cash and Carter.  The sound throughout is well produced, featuring clean arrangements which highlight the Tennessee Three’s sound well.  Side one’s original tunes are both hokey.  Shantytown is a soft love song of two lovers on differing sides of the tracks, yet it is the rich person who is ultimately drawn away from home.  Interestingly, it is never clear whether Johnny or June is the rich one!  The Carter Family provide backing vocals, and Luther provides gentle lead guitar.  Fast Boat to Sydney was written by June along with her sister Anita and mother Helen.  Cheesy kangaroo references aside, it again highlights the dynamic of Johnny and June’s relationship: “I’m a cheat and a liar/And you’re a lovin’ ball of fire.”

Side two’s original tunes fair better.  Oh, What a Good Thing We Had is a laid back love song that pushes the Tennessee Three sound further than ever before.  WS Holland’s tom-tom based drum motif is unlike anything in country music, and we’re treated to the hottest guitar solo on a Cash record to date thanks to none other than Carl “Blue Suede Shoes” Perkins.  You’ll Be All Right is a brief but pretty piano ballad.  Last, Cash’s No, No, No is another poor boy/rich girl love song, this time featuring 12-string acoustic guitar flourishes.

The remaining cover on the album is Richard and Mimi Fariña’s Pack Up Your Sorrows, which stands out thanks to thick harmonies and rolling dobro licks.  Given Richard’s recent death, one can’t help wonder if this was a tribute to another Greenwich Village songwriting idol of Cash’s, alongside Peter LaFarge and Dylan.  Although a country idol, Cash always sat outside the Nashville establishment.  By 1967 he had moved a long way from Now There Was a Song!, his album of country standards.  Instead, he developed his own sound, and drew songs from a wide variety of influences.  While sometimes that didn’t transfer into a workable result, as with his Ray Charles covers, his broad tastes would ultimately serve him well.

In a monstrous catalogue, Carryin’ On is not Cash’s finest record, but it’s an enjoyable one.  If one can let go of any pretensions and enjoy the silly songs for what they are – a young man having fun with his new love and his old musician friends – it’s an entertaining, if short, album.  Moreover, beyond the classic single Jackson, there’s some fine country playin’ on here, and a lot of great interplay between Johnny and June.

4/5

Other Songs from the Era:

• Outside Lookin’ In/Spanish Harlem – The final 45rpm by the Tennessee Three, this one highlights their evolving sound, but just reveal the wizard behind the curtain.  When I first heard this, alongside the great lead guitar on Carryin’ On, I was amazed and how far Luther Perkins’ guitar talents had evolved.  The live version of Outside Lookin’ In on Live from Madison Square Garden reveals Carl Perkins (no relation) to be the lead player.  Regardless, it’s a pleasant little instrumental. Spanish Harlem brings in piano and nylon-string guitar for a Latin feel  unlike anything else they had attempted to date. Available on Bear Records compilations.
• The Wind Changes – An upbeat single released  in 1967.  Where Carryin’ On had some restraint, this single unfortunately brings back the big choruses of the Statler Brothers. Elsewhere, the Tennessee Three offer up another fine performance, plus it’s not often you hear a 12-string guitar solo on a Cash recording! Available on the Legacy Edition of Carryin’ On.
• Red Velvet – A mandocello-led ballad with Cash singing from his lower register another rich girl/poor boy love song. Cash’s first attempt at an Ian Tyson song, it’s not quite Four Strong Winds (as on American V).  Available on Singles, Plus.
• Rosanna’s Going Wild – Strings and mariachi trumpets, along with a thinner audio quality, make this single sound like a lesser Ring of Fire, only four years too late.  Forgettable.  Available on Singles, Plus.
• Roll Call – A big-production civil war song released as the b-side to Rosanna’s Going Wild.  A touching tale of counting bodies after battle, and a suitable companion to On the Line, but largely insignificant in Cash’s canon.  Available on Singles, Plus.
• On the Line – An unreleased civil war narrative, employing mandocello for that real Western feel.  Available on Bootleg Vol. II. I
• Tremble for You – An unreleased acoustic love song.  It’s nice to hear Cash sing so simply (as he would do throughout his career), but he also sounds like the drugs are taking their toll on him. Finally released on the Love compilation.

Review: I Walk the Line – Johnny Cash

We’re now in 1964 and are hitting what, in my opinion, is the sweet spot of Cash’s 1960s output. Johnny Cash is best known for the sparse boom-chicka-boom sound of his Sun years, but over the course of his 50-year recording career, his sound was quite diverse, with varying degrees of success. I would argue that he had four definitive eras:

1. The boom-chicka-boom sound developed in the 50s at Sun Records featuring Luther’s minimal lead and rhythm playing, Marshall’s tick-tock bass, and Johnny’s percussive approach to acoustic guitar backing. The young Cash’s voice was clear and evocative of deep loneliness.
2. The more refined mid-60s sound which added WS Holland’s fiery snare drum sound to round out the Tennessee Three, as well as the broader sonic palette of Bob Johnson on acoustic guitar (and other instruments), the harmonies of the Carter Family (and sometimes the Statler Brothers), and the production flourishes – ranging from bluegrass dobro sounds to Mexican style brass – of Don Law and Frank Jones. During this period, Cash’s vocals alternated between a relaxed baritone, to a wild and tempestuous growl, likely due to his drug abuse.
3. The softer, acoustic approach of his early-mid 70s output which allowed for a more story-oriented songwriting style. The richness of Cash’s baritone was most evident in this era.
4. The revisionist approach of his 90s work with Rick Rubin alternating between solo acoustic numbers and deconstructionist approaches to band performances. In the early days, Rubin simply put Cash in front of a mic and hit record. As Johnny grew increasingly frail, Rubin kept him relaxed by him recording him with his old friends in Nashville, and then stitched together the best takes overtop of new musical beds made by many of Rubin’s friends from Hollywood’s rock and alternative circles. Rubin made effective use of Cash’s increasingly frail voice with dramatic results.

My disposition against Cash’s syrupy and over-orchestrated sounds, which reared its ugly head as early as 1957 but rose to the fore in the mid-70s through the 80s, is obvious. That said, I would argue that there is much to be enjoyed in Cash’s music throughout his career.

Within this framework, I Walk the Line, Cash’s first release of 1964, represents the beginning of a new golden age for Cash. I love every one of his first five releases for Columbia, but each one exists as a creative experiment. Around 1961, almost 18 months had passed before the release of the blander-than-bland Hymns from the Heart, with only a few singles of varying quality to satiate Cash’s fans through the drought. 1962’s Sound of Johnny Cash was a turn for the positive, and then 1963 was a revelation: the classic sound of the Tennessee Three emerged on Blood, Sweat and Tears and a string of classic singles – Busted, Ring of Fire, and (to a lesser degree) The Matador. Sadly, the momentum was broken with two interesting, but inessential releases: the Christmas Spirit and the Carter Family’s Keep on the Sunny Side.

I Walk the Line, however, is the first of four absolutely classic albums which, along with Blood, Sweat and Tears, are the definitive representations of the 60’s Cash studio sound. In some ways, I Walk the Line is a good old cash grab – for the most part it’s Cash recording many of his Sun hits for his new label, Columbia. But it ends up being much more than that.

I Walk the Line features three main types of songs:

Faithful re-recordings of the originals: I Walk the Line, Folsom Prison Blues, Give My Love to Rose, Hey Porter, and Big River all fall into this category. These are his big hits with added drums and slightly more acoustic guitar than with Sam Phillips. In concerts at the time, he played most of these songs fast and furious, with Holland’s snare rocketing them along. These versions tend to be casual and off-hand, with a solid vocal delivery from Cash in each case. While none of these surpass the originals, they are as good a re-recording as could be imagined.

Re-interpretations of the originals: I Still Miss Someone, Wreck of the Old ’97. These two – the first a hit on his first Columbia album, the other a Sun single – are re-done with an acoustic, dobro-led sound courtesy of Norman Blake. Again, I wouldn’t pick these over the originals, but they are interesting and highly listenable.

New songs: Bad News, Understand Your Man, Still in Town, Goodbye Little Darlin’ Goodbye, and Troublesome Waters. In these five originals you really get a full picture of the struggle Cash was going through at the time. You have two classic heartbreakers that match any of his tearjearker staples from the era: Still in Town comes from Harland Howard and Hank Cochran who wrote Patsy Cline’s I Fall to Pieces and Cash’s recent hit Busted, while Goodbye was an old Gene Autry tune.

Bad News and Understand Your Man, though, are just plain shocking. Bad News is comical at times, with Cash literally snorting his way through while the Carters harmonize. Yet Cash’s humour, which was always on hand in concert, sounds on the edge and dangerous here. On Understand Your Man, he is at his most bitter and vitriolic:

You’d just say the same old things that you be sayin’ all along/ Just lay there in your bed and keep your mouth shut ‘Til I’m gone/ Don’t give me that old familiar cryin’ cussin’ moan/ Understand your man/ I’m tired of you bad mouthin’/ Understand your man.

While we know the Cash who “shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” was a character, you can’t help but think this brutal misogynist was a reflection of his darker feelings towards his increasingly estranged wife, Vivian. I can’t imagine a cheating, drug-addled Cash was a very nice man to be married to.

His gospel choice, then, is simply revelatory. Having just completed an album of Carter songs, he now turns again to their catalogue with Troublesome Waters:

When troublesome waters are rolling so high I’ll lift up my voice and to heaven I’ll cry
My Lord I am trusting give guidance to me and steady my boat on life’s troubled sea

The Cash of 1964 was obviously a troubled man and, as we have seen elsewhere in his 60s output, looking to the faith of his childhood for refuge and redemption.

There’s not much else to be said about this release. The production is excellent, a taut and tasteful example of Cash’s 60s sound at its best. The trumpets heard on Ring of Fire, and exaggerated on The Matador, fit perfectly on Understand Your Man. The rest is the full sound of the Tennessee Three, with frequent addition of dobro, and even a gorgeous steel lead on Still in Town (standard fare for country music, but a rarity for Cash). All in all, a great 60s Cash album.

4.5/5

Other tracks from the era:

• Dark as a Dungeon: This beautiful waltz, featuring more mariachi trumpets, was a fitting b-side for the #1 hit, Understand Your Man. It’s absolutely gorgeous and made a perfect staple for his many prison concerts over the years.
• Hammer and Nails – This one was the b-side to Wreck of the Old ’97. With a banjo-led arrangement, this was the first release by Cash’s new protégés, the Statler Brothers. To be honest, I always found the Statlers to be too straight in their arrangements for my taste, but they were the equals of many other gospel quartets. Here they sing a patriotic tale narrated by Cash.
• Bad News – A fake live version was released on the Kentucky Derby Day compilation. Let’s just say the announcer’s shrill voice makes June Carter sound warm and mellifluous! The release also features fake live versions of Hammers and Nails, June’s Tall Loverman, and, ironically, Take My Ring off Your Finger by June’s ex-husband Carl Smith. Skip this release and track down the originals instead.