Sun, July 16, 2006
Fade to Black
We wish all the Johnny Cash-ins would finally end with the spiritual American V
By BILL HARRIS, TORONTO SUN
The collaboration between Johnny Cash and producer Rick Rubin has taken on a never-ending quality.
It's to the point that American V might as well be called American Pi.
And it's not done. American VI is in the works and could be on the shelves before the end of the calendar year.
This despite the fact American V: A Hundred Highways contains Like The 309, the last song Cash wrote before he died in 2003.
Johnny Cash is an icon, obviously. But you know, we've had an awful lot of Johnny Cash in our lives over the past three years.
There have been countless retrospectives, televised concerts and special CD collections. And in 2005 there was the hit movie Walk The Line starring Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.
Carter's daughter Rosanne got into the act, too, releasing the CD Black Cadillac earlier this year. It was a sombre and powerful tribute to her dad and step-mom, but it was not something you would want to listen to if you were in anything resembling a good mood.
Johnny Cash's memory is being mourned to death.
But there's plenty to celebrate about Cash's life, too. He did live to the age of 71. Given modern medicine, 71 still is too young to die, of course. But it's not as if Johnny Cash expired at 29 like Hank Williams, or was murdered at 40 like John Lennon.
That's why it's refreshing that not every song on American V is depressing. In fact, much of it is spiritual.
The aforementioned Like The 309 has an attractive shuffle beat and begins with the line, "It should be a while before I see Dr. Death; so it would sure be nice if I could get my breath."
On some of the tunes here, Cash -- who wasn't in great physical shape when his vocals were recorded -- actually is struggling for breath. Listening to his shaky version of Canadian Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind, Cash's weakness is 50% heartbreakingly endearing and 50% distracting.
Cash is at his confident and deep-throated best on two standout tracks, On The Evening Train by the aforementioned Williams, and I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now by Lou Herscher and Saul Klein.
On The Evening Train features some great guitar work and comes across as a hymn. And Cash's low notes in the chorus of I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now, which is the closing track, still can give a listener goosebumps.
There also are good results with Larry Gatlin's Help Me, which in Cash's hands comes across more as a folk song than a country song.
Less effective is Rod McKuen's Love's Been Good To Me. Frank Sinatra sang the ultimate reflective-hipster version of this great tune, and anything else just doesn't measure up.
The other Cash composition here, I Came To Believe, is slow and whiny.
The words to Don Gibson's A Legend In My Time are too cutesy and smugly simplistic to be believable coming out of Cash's mouth.
Hugh Moffatt's Rose Of My Heart is pretty but sappy.
Further On Up The Road is far from being one of Bruce Springsteen's best songs, despite some cool background instrumentation that brings to mind the first few bars of Strawberry Fields Forever by the Beatles.
And Cash's version of Ian Tyson's Four Strong Winds has a subtle swing beat that's marginally awkward when compared to the classic version by Ian and Sylvia (you miss Sylvia's crystal-clear high harmony, too).
All things considered, American V is a lot like the first four albums in Cash's American series, which came out in 1994, 1996, 2000 and 2002, respectively. In other words, the songs that don't work can be dismissed quickly enough, but the songs that do work remind you of what a unique artist Johnny Cash was.
At some point, maybe a few years down the line, it would be great to see a single CD with the best of Cash's work with Rubin.
Some distance will make it easier to appreciate Cash's contributions. For now, music fans can be forgiven for being a little Cashed out.
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THE SONGS
1. Help Me (2:51)
2. God's Gonna Cut You Down (2:38)
3. Like The 309 (4:35)
4. If You Could Read My Mind (4:30)
5. Further Up On The Road (3:24)
6. On The Evening Train (4:17)
7. I Came To Believe (3:44)
8. Love's Been Good To Me (3:18)
9. A Legend In My Time (2:37)
10. Rose Of My Heart (3:18)
11. Four Strong Winds (4:34)
12. I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now (3:00)
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AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS
Johnny Cash
American/Universal
Sun Rating: 3 out of 5
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