Johnny Cash

[HungryHippo]

ok, I'm sure there were some Cash threads around but nothing came up in my search. anyways, I was in Borders 2 days ago and noticed a new American release on the promo display! this came outta left field, can't believe I knew nothing about this up until the other day.

 

Cash's cover of Redemption Day is jaw dropping! also, Satisfied Mind features some strong vocals. kinda sounds like that song was recorded around American II/ III. not a big fan of Aloha Oe or the rattling chains in Ain't No Grave. feel like that draws attention away from Cash's vocals. overall, it's a solid album and it's been on repeat for the past 3 hours. hope Rubin and co. keep these records rollin'!

[LouieB]

Actually this has been expected for many months. Interesting little review in the New New Yorker. See below.

 

LouieB

 

Cashed Out

by Ben Greenman

 

“American VI: Ain’t No Grave” (American Recordings); Johnny Cash; Rick Rubin; Kris Kristofferson; “For the Good Times”; June Carter; Robert Mitchum There are several good things about “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” (American Recordings), the second posthumous release from Johnny Cash and the final page in Rick Rubin’s final-chapter reclamation project. The title song demonstrates admirable defiance in the face of death. Cash’s heartbreaking cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times” both recalls the passing of Cash’s wife, June Carter, and forecasts his own impending end. Cash is frail in voice, but strong in spirit. You couldn’t ask for a more dignified farewell.

 

You could, however, ask for a more accurate one. This volume is a stark reminder of how the Rubin years have shifted our sense of Cash, and not for the better. Rubin’s Cash has become an indelible character, an aged seer given to stark pronouncements on faith, love, and mortality. But he is also a poor representative of all the other Johnny Cashes—the one who drove the Tennessee Two through the boom-chicka-boom Sun singles, the historian of American song, the sometimes goofy “Old Golden Throat,” the prison activist, the Man in Black, the Highwayman.

 

It’s that versatility that’s lost here; if the first few records in the series were more varied, later ones find Cash narrowed if not quite flattened. Accepting Rubin’s version of the man is like reducing Picasso to lickerish drawings of Jacqueline or Eliot to “Four Quartets.” Cash may now seem like a John Wayne figure, but he was closer in spirit to Robert Mitchum, always restless and always changing, and here each stark, lovely cover (Sheryl Crow’s “Redemption Day,” Tom Paxton’s “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”) begs for a “Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog” or “Put the Sugar to Bed.” Cash could always do solemnity, but he could also do comedy, character sketches, and cornpone philosophy. And he could do it in his own write: the Rubin reboot frames Cash primarily as an interpreter, but he was also a prolific songwriter. Here, the sole Cash original, “I Corinthians 15:55,” a gentle piece rooted in Scripture (“O, Death, where is thy sting?”), hits the same valedictory note as the rest of the collection. Rubin shouldn’t be blamed for leaving us with this Cash. But he shouldn’t be allowed to run away with the thing, either. Cash’s American period should go down in history as a triumph of record making and a cautionary tale about remaking image.

[calvino]

Greg Kot gave it a great review, to each his own. Since this is the supposed last CD, Rubin may have not had much left to work with. I don't think I would want a happy, happy, funny, funny song on a disc called Ain't No Grave. Then again I liked (for the most part) the Rubin produced releases.

 

Full Trib. Link

 

Rating 3.5 stars (out of 4)

In the final decade of his life, Johnny Cash revived his career by collaborating with producer Rick Rubin on a series of recordings that yielded five studio albums and a box set – one of the great final chapters authored by any pop icon in the last half-century.

Now, more than six years after Cash’s death in 2003, 10 more songs from those sessions have been collected on “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” (American Recordings/Lost Highway). Skepticism would be in order, given that the legacies of artists from Elvis Presley to Tupac Shakur have been marred by countless ill-considered, posthumous releases.

 

That is not the case with “VI.” Cash was determined to record as much as possible soon after the love of his life, June Carter Cash, died in May 2003

 

...

 

 

He bids farewell with a 19th Century Hawaiian song, “Aloha Oe.” Elvis Presley recorded a souped-up version of it for his 1961 movie “Blue Hawaii.” But Cash just rides the gentle melody over a bottleneck guitar, as if he were swinging in a hammock with a bottle of rum, biding his time until the next great adventure comes along. What a way to go.

[choo-choo-charlie]

Since this is the supposed last CD, Rubin may have not had much left to work with.

 

This is what I've read too. I haven't listened to it yet, but used to have a copy of IV, with "The Man Comes Around," "Hurt," and "Give My Love to Rose." Pretty good opening three tracks. In my opinion, the best posthumous release in the Cash catalog is Personal File, the set of solo home recordings with one disc of sacred material and another of secular, interspersed with stories and commentary from The Man in Black.

[LouieB]

Personal File is a good one, but quite different from what Rubin was doing.

 

LouieB

[choo-choo-charlie]

Personal File is a good one, but quite different from what Rubin was doing.

 

LouieB

 

Indeed it is/was. Just sayin' I enjoy it the most of all the records released after Cash's death...

[LouieB]

Indeed it is/was. Just sayin' I enjoy it the most of all the records released after Cash's death...

I agree. In some ways it is better than the material on some of the Rubin albums, since it is material collected and picked by Johnny himself, with guitar played by him. The Cash estate did us a favor by releasing this.

 

LouieB

[HungryHippo]

I agree. In some ways it is better than the material on some of the Rubin albums, since it is material collected and picked by Johnny himself, with guitar played by him. The Cash estate did us a favor by releasing this.

 

LouieB

I can't believe I Don't Hurt Anymore is a Martina Mcbride song! first time I heard it, I was very impressed with it and it seems like the perfect Cash song. granted, it doesn't work well in the context of Cash's later years, however, he makes it his own like he did with 99.6% of the songs he covered throughout his American years. and its cool that they revisited Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream. I prefer the live Madison Square Garden '69 version over this one but its still cool. and Cool Water!!! one of my fav. Hank Sr. tunes (even though Hank didn't write it, he still owns it.)

 

edit- has anyone listened to Satisfied Mind yet? I swear that its not from Cash's final sessions...def. earlier sounding.

[bigideas]

is I Corinthians his last written song or 309 from the last album?

 

i think the last two All Music Guides both say those songs are his last ones, so i'm confused.

[HungryHippo]

is I Corinthians his last written song or 309 from the last album?

 

i think the last two All Music Guides both say those songs are his last ones, so i'm confused.

I read somewhere that I Corinthians was started around 2000 and he worked on it up until recording it in 2003.

[The High Heat]

ok, I'm sure there were some Cash threads around but nothing came up in my search. anyways, I was in Borders 2 days ago and noticed a new American release on the promo display! this came outta left field, can't believe I knew nothing about this up until the other day.

If you sign up for Lost Highway Records email-newsletter they'll give you a heads up about releases/news about their artists, and they have a pretty good roster.