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JOHNNY CASH Live At Folsom Prison (1968) 
Rating (Out of 10): 9 Tracklisting: Folsom Prison Blues/ Busted/Dark As The Dungeon/ I Still Miss Someone/ Cocaine Blues /25 Minutes To Go/Orange Blossom Special /The Long Black Veil /Send A Picture Of Mother/ The Wall/ Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog/ Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart / Joe Bean/Jackson /Give My Love To Rose/I Got Stripes/The Legend Of John Henry's Hammer/ Green, Green Grass Of Home/Greystone Chapel ‘Live At Folsom Prison’ is one of the most famous and widely appreciated of all Johnny Cash’s albums. This is as much due to the audacity of the format as it is to do with actual tracklisting and quality of the songs. Nothing like this had ever really been done before. The idea of recording a concert in a high security prison was audacious, exciting and new, and it definitely paid off for Cash both professionally and personally. Having just come out of rehab for drug and alcohol addiction, this release really injected a new lease of life into his career. You just can’t imagine anyone else pulling this off, but with Cash it really works. He’d always had empathy for the inhabitants of Folsom prison which he showed in his 1956 release 'Folsom Prison Blues' which he wrote after watching a television documentary about the prison; so it followed that he would choose Folsom to host the first of his prison concerts. This live cd became one of Johnny Cash’s biggest sellers. I suppose there was a certain fascination behind it, but it is also a very good and very interesting live album. Throughout the album Cash builds up a rapport with the inmates, sharing witty banter, and really getting a good atmosphere going. The track list was very much hand picked for an audience of prisoners as Cash sings just about every prison song ever written including his own 'Folsom Prison Blues'. With this album Cash did something very audacious and in doing so managed to relaunch his career and make himself a household name. He was no longer just a country singer, he became someone whose music appealed to people from all walks of life and which transcended musical genres. Send A Comment American III: Solitary Man (2000) 
Rating (Out of 10): 8 Tracklisting: I Won’t Back Down/Solitary Man/That Lucky Old Sun/One Nobody/I See A Darkness/The Mercy Seat/Would You Lay With Me/Field Of Diamonds/Before My Time/Country Trash/Mary Of The Wild Moor/I’m Leavin’ Now/Wayfaring Stranger ‘Solitary Man’ is the third album in Johnny Cash’s ‘American series that consists of 4 albums all produced by Rick Rubin, and sees Cash’s perform a mixture of his own hits along side traditional numbers and a diverse range of cover versions; and involves many appearances by guest vocalists and musicians. Throughout the album the importance is placed on Cash as a vocalist. Many of the tracks are stripped down musically to the extent that they are unrecognisable from the original version, and importance is given to Cash’s vocals. Prior to this album Cash had been ill, but the performance given throughout the album shows no signs of his demise as it is strong throughout. But perhaps his illness contributed to his choice of tracks. There is a diverse selection of songs, but they all come together through shared themes of divenence and strength and a certain outsider quality. The album begins strongly with a version of Tom Petty’s ‘I won’t Back Down’ which includes Petty on backing vocals and guitar. It provides a good opening to what would come later on the rest of the album. A cover of Neil Diamond’s ‘Solitary Man’ comes next and provides the album’s title. ‘Nobody’ is a great track. Originally a vaudeville number by Egbert Williams, Cash’s retains much of the comedy value of the song in the insincere delivery of its humorous lyrics. The album’s absolute highlight for me is ‘The Mercy Seat’ originally recorded by ‘Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ it seems an ideal track for Cash to perform. Stripped of much of the wild noise of the original and accompanied only by an organ and piano, Cash lets the lyrics and vocals speak for themselves; and as with many of the tracks on this album, it almost comes across like a Johnny Cash original rather than a cover version. Another highlight is the Bonnie Prince Billy track ‘I See A Darkness’ complete with Will Oldham on backing vocals. The juxtaposition of the old and young voices complement the lyrics and the general feel of the track perfectly, and adds an extra dimension to the emotional quality of the song. Cash has included several of his own songs on the album including ‘Field Of Diamonds’ and ‘Before My Time’, and they mix in well with the covers, carrying on the same themes and styles. ‘Field Of Diamonds’ sees Cash accompanied by his wife June Carter Cash, and Sheryl Crowe on backing vocals and it really is a beautiful moment on the album. All in all, ‘Solitary Man’ is a great album that brings Johnny Cash into another plane musically and whilst still appealing to his long-standing fans, will probably gain him many new fans from a younger generation. Send A Comment
AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND (2002) 
Rating (Out of 10): 8.5 The Man Comes Around/Hurt/Give My Love To Rose/Bridge Over Troubled Water/I Hung My Head/First Time Ever I Saw Your Face/Personal Jesus/In My Life/Sam Hall/Danny boy/Desperado/I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry/Tear Stained Letter/Streets of Laredo/We'll Meet Again/Big Iron ‘The Man Comes Around’ is the 4th album in Johnny Cash’s ‘American’ series with each album seeing him record a number of cover versions mixed in with his own songs both old and new, and a number of traditional standards. Throughout the album Cash performs a wide range of tracks from artists as diverse as Nine Inch Nails, Simon and Garfunkel, Depeche Mode, Sting and The Beatles. Treating each track with the utmost respect, Cash injects his own uncompromising style making each one his own and often resulting in many of them sounding as if they’re his own original compositions rather than cover versions. The album opens with the title track ‘The Man Comes Around’, the only new song on the album, and it is definitely one of the best songs Cash has ever written. In the CD booklet he outlines how he spent 4 months writing it based on the bible and particularly, the book of Revelations. The time spent on the song really shows as it is absolutely magnificent. Singing of angels and virgins, and with lyrics that came to him in a dream, Cash has created an astounding track that sounds modern, yet has Cash’s classic signature style. ‘Hurt’ is a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song and the lyrics and feel of the track suit Cash perfectly and are complimented by his old and sometimes broken voice which sounds full of emotion and sincerity. A great reworking of Cash’s own song ‘Give My Love To Rose’ and a magnificent version of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ with backing vocals from Fiona Apple, all combine to give a great start to the album. When I first heard ‘I Hung My Head’ I thought it was one of Johnny Cash’s own songs. It sounds like a classic country track with lyrics that tell the story of a man who kills someone with his brother’s rifle; so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that it had been written by Sting. I really can’t imagine Sting writing and performing a track like this, and it just seems to have Johnny Cash written all over it. A clear highlight of this album is a duet with Nick Cave on the Hank Williams classic “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”. Nick Cave sings harmony probably for the first time ever, and it sounds absolutely beautiful, the two men’s voices sounding perfect together. Another track that gets a good reworking is Desperado, a song I have never liked and that would make me change channels instantly if it ever came on the radio or T.V. But this version, complete with backing vocals from Don Henley really makes me change my opinion of it. And the same can be said of a lot of the tracks on this album. Cash adds a new dimension, making you listen and think about things in a different way. His version of ‘First Time Ever I saw Your Face’ is utterly beautiful and is sung with such incredible devotion that it almost makes me want to cry. Cash includes several traditional songs on this album, the best of which has to be Irish folk song, Danny boy, a song that practically every single Irish person who has ever lived has recorded. It’s not a song I particularly like as it’s usually sung in an easy listening twee sort of way, but Cash injects it with a new leash of life, giving a strong vocal performance accompanied by a pipe organ, and making it sound like a completely different song. ‘The Man Comes Around’ is a strong album covering many great tracks including fantastic versions of The Beatles ‘In My Life’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’. Unfortunately it sort of peters out at the end with all the strongest tracks being at the beginning, and it tends to go out with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang. But ‘The Man Comes Around’ is still an amazingly accomplished album. Any 70 year old country singer who can cover a Nine Inch Nails song and make it sound like his own is definitely an amazing talent in my book. Listening to this album, Cash remains the country music legend he has always been, but he also becomes something else, something with a wider appeal, someone who can not only write good songs, but can take other people’s songs and turn them into something completely different and give them a completely different meaning. And in this age where the entire concept of the cover version has become diluted and almost always seen as a bit of a cop-out on the part of the artist, this is somewhat of an achievement. Send A Comment
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