American Recordings

Johnny Cash

album cover

More than a Comeback

Very few figures in American music have had second lives as rich as that of Johnny Cash (1932–2003). The legend whose 1960s recordings inspired waves of outlaw country endured a long period of what might charitably be described as "artistic decline" in the 1970s and '80s—issuing a string of thin, ill-conceived albums. And then, in storybook fashion, along came a producer and worshipper with indie cred to burn, Rick Rubin, who was determined to help Cash regain his voice.

"I think in many ways he felt like he was done, and that nobody cared about what he was doing anymore," Rubin recalled shortly after Cash died. "He had no motivation around him." The producer of Slayer and the Beastie Boys prevailed upon Cash to try record-making again, and encouraged him to be who he was at that moment—a man confronting old age, looking back on scores left unsettled.

In this way, American Recordings is more than a comeback—it's a rare glimpse of a legend in the late innings. Cash is no longer invincible, but he's still got that mojo, and man, does he use it. The sepulchral voice holds the spotlight almost by default, standing apart from Rubin's minimal, unobtrusive accompaniment. The songs include several Cash originals on familiar themes (murder ballads, train songs), as well as covers of rock-era compositions. Nick Lowe's "The Beast in Me" sounds like it was written with Cash in mind, while Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" becomes almost hauntingly poetic.

American Recordings introduced Cash to a new generation, and served as the blueprint for a series of subsequent albums, which included unlikely but stupendous covers of songs by Nine Inch Nails and others. The last of them, American V: A Hundred Highways, was completed just before Cash's death. The storied voice is heartbreakingly wobbly, and sickness haunts every note like the train he sings of on his lugubrious "The 309," but the mighty Cash spirit rolls on.

Genre: Country
Released: 1994, American
Key Tracks: "Delia's Gone," "Bird on a Wire," "The Beast in Me"
Catalog Choice: Hymns by Johnny Cash; American V: A Hundred Highways
Next Stop: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The Boatman's Call
After That: Mark Lanegan: Whiskey for the Holy Ghost
Book Page: 152

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