Artist: Johnny Cash
Title: American Recordings
Format: Single LP
Label: American
Catalogue Number: 5101-12792-1
Year of Release: 1994
Tracklisting
A1 Delia's Gone (2:17)
A2 Let The Train Blow The Whistle (2:15)
A3 The Beast In Me (2:45)
A4 Drive On (2:23)
A5 Why Me Lord (2:21)
A6 Thirteen (2:29)
A7 Oh, Bury Me Not (Introduction: A Cowboy's Prayer) (3:52)
B1 Bird On A Wire (4:00)
B2 Tennessee Stud (2:54)
B3 Down There By The Train (5:35)
B4 Redemption (3:01)
B5 Like A Soldier (2:49)
B6 The Man Who Couldn't Cry (4:59)
This is where the Great Johnny Cash Revival began. Producer Rick Rubin (Slayer, Public Enemy) also doing his career no harm by having the idea of recording just Johnny and his guitar. Most tracks were recorded in Rick's living room and Johnny Cash's cabin. Two (Tennessee Stud and The Man Who Couldn't Cry) were recorded live at The Viper Room.
Future releases in the American Recordings series did not repeat the live element, but they did follow roughly the same format of new Cash material, old Cash material, country standards and unusual cover versions. The oddest cover here being Danzig's Thirteen.
Later the same year Johnny played at the Glastonbury Festival, a performance which did the Revival nothing but good. He plays a few crowd-pleasers, Folsom Prison, Sunday Morning Coming Down (a predictable cheer goes up at the line, "I'm wishing Lord, that I was stoned"), Ring of Fire, then the first three tracks from this album and Bird on a Wire, finishing with Jackson, Orange Blossom Special and A Boy Named Sue. The highlight of the recording though is Johnny's reaction to the crowd - he couldn't believe he was still so popular. I think the organisers even had to move him to a bigger stage to accommodate the 50,000+ people who turned up to see him. Download the full gig here:
Download Cash, Johnny - 1994 Glastonbury festival
Here are some sample lyrics from opening number (and brand new tune) Delia's Gone.
Delia, oh, Delia, Delia all my life
If I hadn't have shot poor Delia
I'd have had her for my wife
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
[...]
First time I shot her, I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died
Delia's gone, one more round Delia's gone
It sets a light-hearted tone for the rest of the album that belies the heaviness of some of the later songs' sentiments, but I think it tells you not to take it too seriously, and enjoy the music, as the man enjoyed singing it. I think the only misfire is the Loudon Wainwright III cover, The Man Who Couldn't Cry, which is a spiteful number, made nastier here by the crowd howling with laughter at the most vengeful and misogynistic parts. An otherwise solid album, but the best in the American Recordings series was yet to come.
Here is the allmusic entry, for more.
