American V: A Hundred Highways is the long-awaited album of Johnny Cash's final recordings, the basic tracks for which (i.e., Cash's vocals) were recorded in 2002-2003, with overdubs added by producer Rick Rubin after his death on September 12, 2003, at age 71. Between 1994 and 2002, Cash and Rubin had succeeded in fashioning a third act for the veteran country singer's career, following his acclaimed 1950s work for Sun Records and his popular recordings for Columbia in the 1960s and '70s. In the '80s, Cash's star had faded, but Rubin reinvented him as a hip country-folk-ock elder at 62 with American Recordings (1994), his first new studio album to reach the pop charts in 18 years. Unchained (1996) and American III: Solitary Man (2000) continued the comeback, at least as far as the critics were concerned, though none of the albums was actually a big seller. But American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), propelled by Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" and a powerful video, stayed in the pop charts longer than any Cash album since 1969's Johnny Cash at San Quentin. By 2002, however, Cash was in failing health, homebound and in a wheelchair, and he suffered a personal blow when his wife, June Carter Cash, died on May 15, 2003. The American series, which posited Cash as an aged sage and the repository for a bottomless American songbook, had already shown a predilection for gloom in the name of gravity; it's no surprise that the fifth and final volume would be even more concerned with, as three earlier Cash compilations had put it, God, Love, and Murder. The ailing septuagenarian certainly sounds like he's near the end of his life, but that said, he doesn't sound bad. Cash was never a great singer in a technical sense: he hadn't much range, his pitch often wobbled, and his lack of breath control sometimes found him grasping for sound at the end of lines. But he was a great singer in the sense of projecting a persona through his voice; his emotional range, which went from a Sinatra-like swagger to an almost embarrassingly intimate vulnerability, was as wide as the spread of notes he could hit confidently was narrow. Such a singer doesn't really lose that much with age; in fact, he gains even more interpretive depth. Listening to this album, one can't get around the knowledge that it is a posthumous collection made in Cash's last days, but even without that context, it would have much the same impact.
The album begins with two religious songs, Larry Gatlin's "Help Me," a plea to God, and the raditional "God's Gonna Cut You Down," which, in a sense, answers that plea. The finality of death thus established, Cash launches into what is billed as the last song he ever wrote, "Like the 309," which is about a train taking his casket away. The same image is used later in the cover of Hank Williams' "On the Evening Train," in which a man and his child put the coffin of a wife and mother on another train. Cash sings these songs in a restrained manner, and even has a sense of humor in "Like the 309," in which he complains about his asthma: "It should be awhile/Before I see Doctor Death/So it would sure be nice/If I could get my breath." In between the two train songs come songs that may not have been about death when their authors wrote them, but sure sound like they are here. As written, Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" seems to concern a romantic breakup expressed in literary and cinematic terms, but in Cash's voice, lines like "You know that ghost is me" and "But stories always end" become inescapably elegiac. Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)" is even easier to interpret as a call to the hereafter, with lines like "Got on my dead man's suit and my smilin' skull ring/My lucky graveyard boots and song to sing." These two songs make a pair with the album's two closing songs. Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" is, like the Lightfoot selection, a folk standard by a Canadian songwriter, also nominally about romantic dissolution, although here the singer who is "bound for moving on" doesn't seem likely to come back. And the closing song, "I'm Free from the Chain Gang Now," may have lyrics implying that the unjustly imprisoned narrator has been set free, but in Cash's voice it sounds like he's been executed instead and is singing from beyond the grave. The four songs in between "On the Evening Train" and "Four Strong Winds," dealing with faith and love (the former expressed in a previously recorded 1984 Cash copyright, "I Came to Believe"), are weaker than what surrounds them, but they serve to complete the picture. And it's worth noting that Cash at death's door still outsings croaking Rod McKuen on the songwriter's ever-cloying "Love's Been Good to Me." Cash may never have heard Rubin's overdubs, but they are restrained and tasteful, never doing anything more than to support the singer and the song. If the entire series of American recordings makes for a fitting finale to a great career, American V: A Hundred Highways is a more than respectable coda.
Billboard points out that this week's chart topper, with 83,000 copies sold, is "the lowest sum for a No. 1-debuting album in Nielsen SoundScan's 18-year history. Previously, the low-water mark was held by Johnny Cash's American V: A Hundred Highways...
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" Gods Gonna Cut You Down" - Johnny CashIn the twilight of his recording career, and not long before his passing, The "Man in Black" committed to tape a truly brilliant and moving version of this old traditional folk song.Odetta, The Blind Boys of Alabama and even Elvis had all gone before in recording their own versions of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" sometimes known as "Run on", a great testa...
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Say what you will about the fact that the celebrities in this video really have nothing to do with the song, but it works for me.
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This new Johnny Cash video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down" has been generating some mixed reactions. Regardless, the song is great...And if it sounds familiar, maybe you recall it as "Run On" from Moby's Play. This video was directed by Mike Mills (Thumbsucker)...
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Like I said - it's really very personal. Both the record itself and my reaction to it. The more I listen to it the more I dig it. There's a lot of truth in it.What I think about most when I listen to it is that I want my father to listen to it. How do describe the Colonel... decrepit ol' Marine with shitty lungs and fragile skin. "Like the 309" sounds just like him. _It should be a while ...
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Further On Up The Road"- Bruce Springsteen's tune "I'll meet farther on up on the road- Got on my dead man's suit and a song to sing. Where the road is dark, one sunny morning and we'll rise I know and we will meet further on up the road"
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I was down at the famous Portland Saturday's Market on a beautiful fall day and found this artist selling some great psychedlic paintings of musicians, mostly big iconic ones like John Lennon, Ray Charles, etc. I liked the one of Johnny Cash here the best. I asked him if he was open to doing an painting of an artist of choice for a customer but he was a bit reluctant stating he was swamped with...
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Nobody can tell a story in song like Johnny Cash. Just dropping by to share this song....have a great weekend MOG land.
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Billboard points out that this week's chart topper, with 83,000 copies sold, is "the lowest sum for a No. 1-debuting album in Nielsen SoundScan's 18-year history. Previously, the low-water mark was held by Johnny Cash's American V: A Hundred Highways...
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This is one lonesome mournful song - - recorded with producer Rick Rubin near the end of Cash's life.
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I'm a Rockfiend, but the house I grew up in wasn't filled with music. Sure we had an old record player and a bunch of cheap records, kids records, folk albums, and a bunch of my moms 1001 Strings albums. We listened to NPR sometimes, and books on tape more when we were in the car. My Mom has been a Johnny Cash fan for a long time, but she never over played his music, and that's ok, because it m...
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" Gods Gonna Cut You Down" - Johnny CashIn the twilight of his recording career, and not long before his passing, The "Man in Black" committed to tape a truly brilliant and moving version of this old traditional folk song.Odetta, The Blind Boys of Alabama and even Elvis had all gone before in recording their own versions of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" sometimes known as "Run on", a great testa...
More >
I read recently that Justin Timberlake came up with an idea for a Johnny Cash video for the song, "God's Gonna Cut You Down". In the video, about a long list of an eclectic group of stars appear in the vid, all wearing Johnny's signature black. "Timberlake tops a list of 36 stars who appear in the clip, including Iggy Pop, Kanye West, Coldplay's Chris Martin, actor Terrence Howard, Anthony Ki...
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does anyone else absolutely love johnny cash's new sound on american V? i mean i was never a huge cash fan because all of his songs sounded light and upbeatish, even when the lyrics were a bit darker. but his guitar playing and vocals have a whole new depth on this album. it's too bad he's no longer around to make more music. but there is still american VI to look forward to sometime this y...
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This is a really great Johnny Cash video. Check it out.
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This new Johnny Cash video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down" has been generating some mixed reactions. Regardless, the song is great...And if it sounds familiar, maybe you recall it as "Run On" from Moby's Play. This video was directed by Mike Mills (Thumbsucker)...
More >
Just finally bought the most recent Johnny Cash cd from the American Recordings series...phenomenal! Actually much better than the last two despite it being recorded from his deathbed. Cover alert: Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind...almost as good as Sundown!I have a love/hate relationship with Johnny Cash. My partner (Jim) and I have wildly different musical taste and Johnny Cash i...
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Today I received my copy of "A Hundred Highways" the latest (maybe the "last":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_VI) recording of "The Man in Black":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Cash, unluckelywise I cant listen to the CD right now because my collegue dont like "such" music, so I have to wait until home to listen. The reviews of this Album are not so bad so I hope for a genuine enjoym...
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The sky has been threatening rain since I woke up this morning. It never follows through, brooding silently overhead. The day seems miserable and airless, static. It’s one of those days when you could be the only soul alive.I take the SAT for the last exhausting time and drive home in a fog. I fumble with my keys at the back door and find my way inside.Without warning, I am knocked over by .
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 "American V: A Hundred Highways")
