REVIEW: JOHNNY CASH - SONGWRITER

4/5

American Songbook

In the Winter of his discontent, American country legend Johnny Cash made magic with Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Beastie Boys and Jay-Z super-producer Rick Rubin. The world had 99 problems (it's got a hundred more now, though). Releasing volume after volume of his 'American Recordings' in bitter black and white for the Stars and Stripes. Covering everything from U2's 'One', to a redefining cut of the Nine-Inch Nails classic 'Hurt'. All to see if we still felt.

Now recording in the same monochrome vein for the great American songbook, and following Willie Nelson's 75th album at 91 years of age, the 'Songwriter' releases his 72nd album. Not bad for the Man in Black, whose been dead for over 20 years. He really was going to a funeral, like Joaquin Phoenix noted in his beautiful biopic to 'Walk The Line'. Or him putting a folded bill in Roy Orbison's coffin after losing a bet with the Travelling Wilbury that he wouldn't grow a ponytail. What more would you expect from Cash, who afforded recording albums in other languages like Japanese, so fans overseas wouldn't be lost in translation?

Yet this rising Mercury release from the Nashville legend with his own museum a few blocks from the Hall of Fame, in all its half-hour power, was recorded in 1993. Reminding us of being 'Out Among The Stars' like Elvis Costello remixing the redux of the Silver Spoon Café for 'She Used To Love Me A Lot'. "Old memories would win her heart for sure". As the man with a guitar, and a love letter in his back pocket, knows how to strike an ode and chord. On a wing and a prayer, the 'Songwriter' album beautifully begins with the out of this world single 'Hello Out There' that reaches out among the stars for signs of life.

"We're the third from the sun/We are blue and white/Spinning (spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning)/If you wish upon a star/Wish upon us tonight/We're dimming (dimming, dimming, dimming, dimming)/Hello out there/We're in the Milky Way/Sailing (sailing, sailing, sailing, sailing)/In this final fight for life and peace/We're failing (failing, failing, failing, failing)", Cash sings, in classic couplet concept. All for a song wrote in '93, which could have been penned yesterday with tomorrow's problems still on the horizon we stubbornly like to call hope. 

This fifth posthumous release from Johnny, produced by father and son John Carter Cash, alongside David R. Ferguson, Josh Matas and Mike Daniel, features 11 new and original takes from the Tommy Lee Jones of country music. All brought to bear by the fun lead single you'll just have to sing along to like 'Well Alright'. Straight out of the Cash Cabin, off the Rosey Cash LSI Studios demos, even without the overdubs last year, this real record would sound like the genuine article for review. Saved from the cutting room floor for this country King's Fort Knox vault of songs, as big as Prince's for your royal appointment. 

These recordings were shelved for America with Rick. Although standout songs like 'Poor Valley Girl' hark back to the 70s. Whilst you can find 'Sing It Pretty, Sue' like a boy of the same name on the 1962 'Sound Of Johnny Cash'. 'Drive On' and 'Like A Soldier' making their way to Rubin's recordings. Shining a 'Spotlight' on his song showmanship legend like the 'Icon' bonus disc that serves as a greatest hits, 'I Love You Tonite' says it plainly like matrimony. "And I love you tonite/Even more than I loved you in the sixties/And I know that we are right/Even more than I knew it in the seventies/Oh, baby, ain't we a sight?/Can you believe we made it through the eighties?/And will we make the millennium?/Well, we might/I love you tonite," to have and to hold across the hands and sides of time.

Marching on like a different 'Soldier Boy', 'Have You Ever Been To Little Rock'. Well if so, tell 'em, on this picture-perfect postcard of the great American landscape like the heads of Mt. Rushmore, north by northwest. "Those Arkansas women/Born with beauty and grace/Up in the Ozark Mountains/The one they call Betty Jean/You can see God's country/Put a smile on your face/It's the land of my family/Down in Cleveland County/It's where my mama and daddy were born/Where the singin' pines grow", this dear John can still turn his notebook into a cinematic vision. Or scripture for the gospel singer, whose word you should take as such. 

"And she looked to the skies, where hеaven should be/Said, "Could it be thеre's no heaven for me?/The only difference in my life and hell are the flames"", he sings on 'She Sang "Sweet Baby James"' leaving you with lyrics that last like lashes from the rain of another person's pain. Johnny always sang for the poor and downtrodden, from Folsom Prison, to the time 'When The Man Comes Around'. Turning dirty water into a holy cup with all his wonderful work that runneth over. In his last years as a 'Songwriter' of 'American Recordings', Johnny Cash was really on to something, as he knew this would be the legacy that lasted. He was already a legend, but walking the line, he stepped into another light that illuminated him like the icon that he is. Now we're the ones singing 'Hello Out There' in hopes he'll somehow hear our call. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Hello Out There', 'I Love You Tonite', 'Have You Ever Been To Little Rock?'