Johnny Cash sings Lightfoot

[GJA]

Just found this on CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Musi...ash/index.html

[Shutup and Deal, I'm Losin']

If Cash's version of IYCRMM is supposed to be sadder than HURT, then I should be in for a real treat.

[Shutup and Deal, I'm Losin']

Originally posted by MistyMoppens:
Since HURT ripped my heart out perhaps I'd better skip IYCRMM...

Did you see the video?

[Auburn Annie]

Another review:

American V: A Hundred Highways is a heart-breaking look at Johnny Cash's final days on this mortal coil. The reality that this is a posthumous offering is painfully present in his trembling baritone voice and the spiritual reverence swelling in songs "Help Me" and "God's Gonna Cut You Down."

The epic sadness in his rendition of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" is absolutely soul-crushing. Guitarists Matt Sweeney (Bonnie Prince Billy), Smokey Hormel and others key off the mortal burdens echoing in Cash's words to tear-jerking affect. "Like the 309" is the final song Cash wrote before dying. Love, God and death are touched on with a calming sense of humor propelled by a railroad beat. A Hundred Highways is a powerful send-off for the man in black that won't leave a dry eye within earshot. 5 stars.

From http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/g...id=oid%3A90485

[Jesse Joe]

Hurt was very sad to watch. By sad I mean, The Man in Black having accomplished so much in is long career.

I hope there's a video for the Lightfoot song...

[Auburn Annie]

Another Cash review (Flint MI):


Johnny Cash at his weakest produces final, powerful album
New on CD
FLINT
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Friday, July 07, 2006
By Doug Pullen
dpullen@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6140

Johnny Cash


"American V: A Hundred Highways" (American/Lost Highway)

It's been almost nine years since the Man in Black nearly fell off the Whiting auditorium stage. The incident put an end to his touring career, but not his voice. Without touring, Cash became a prolific recording artist again in his final years, churning out a series of austerely recorded versions of classic folk, country and gospel, blended with arresting interpretations of contemporary rock songs (like NIN's "Hurt" and Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage") that revived his career, if not his ability to perform concerts again.

The fifth volume of the so-called American series is the most profound, a sweetly sad and celebratory rumination on life's last breath and beyond. It is at times defiant, humble, accepting, melancholic, maudlin and occasionally humorous.

Cash's ravaged baritone is the real star here, thanks in no small measure to the subtle, sympathetic production of the ubiquitous Rick Rubin, the man who talked the Man in Black into attempting this series in the '90s. The voice wasn't what it used to be when he made "V" three years ago. Etched with grief over the loss of the love of his life, wife June Carter Cash, and sapped of its strength, Cash's voice struggles and strains on this record, and will forever serve as a lasting testimony to his faith and courage.

The emotional wallop it packs on his version of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" is gutwrenching and heartbreaking. If it doesn't choke you up, you don't have a heart. The song is the emotional fulcrum on which these dozen songs about life, death and the afterlife balance.

Recorded largely between May 2003, when June died, and Cash's own death on Sept. 12, 2003, "V" is the sound of a religious man who had come to terms with death. The album opens with Larry Gatlin's "Help Me," about a wayward man who gives himself to God. Cash's craggy moan and Rubin's understated accompaniment - a gently plucked acoustic guitar and carefully placed cello phrases - turn it into a song about a proud man ready to leave this life. "Lord help me walk another mile just one more mile," he pleads. "I'm tired of walking all alone."

It's a powerful way to open an album. It closes just as powerfully with the "I'm Free From the Chain Gang Now," its prisoner imagery turned into a metaphor for liberation from this life. Cash turns Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)" and Ian Tyson's (by way of Neil Young) "Four Strong Winds" into invitations to the afterlife. The stark stomp of the traditional "God's Gonna Cut You Down," like Cash's own "I Came to Believe," address pride and past sins.

But even near death, Cash wasn't above a nod and a wink, returning to his iconic train imagery for the death rattle boogie "Like the 309," the last song he wrote and recorded. "Everybody take a look/See I'm doing fine," he sings with surprising strength, "Then load my box/On the 309." You can just picture him slumped in a chair, glasses perched on his nose, a smile creasing that round, friendly face. It's a great performance.

The train metaphor returns on Hank and Audrey Williams' "On the Evening Train," sung slowly and methodically in tribute to the passing of his wife. "It's hard to know she's gone forever," he sings with little emotion, "They're carrying her home on the evening train." He revisits his love for his soul mate on the tender "Rose of My Heart."

The album's weak spots are its most overly sentimental - Rod McKuen's sappy "Love's Been Good to Me," which features one of Cash's strongest and most upbeat vocals, and Don Gibson's "A Legend in My Time," which is saved by Cash's spoken interval.

The bad news is that Johnny Cash is gone. The good news is that even with death knocking at his door he was able to deliver such a powerfully inspirational record - and that he wrote and recorded enough material for a sixth installment, due next year.

- Doug Pullen

Journal entertainment writer

***

[TheWatchman]

Originally posted by MistyMoppens:
Since HURT ripped my heart out perhaps I'd better skip IYCRMM...

Cash's version of IYCRMM is not nearly as sad as his version of Hurt, not even close. It's a sad song to begin with, but only a little sadder with Cash singing it. I'm listening to it now.

The entire CD is great, especially "Four Strong Winds", I've listened to it many times now. I didn't find this CD overly sad and wasn't overly anxious to purchase it (after reading the reviews). I'm glad I bought it on it's release day. As far as this longtime Cash fan is concerned, it's not sad at all.

[Shutup and Deal, I'm Losin']

Originally posted by TheWatchman:
quote:Originally posted by MistyMoppens:
Since HURT ripped my heart out perhaps I'd better skip IYCRMM...

Cash's version of IYCRMM is not nearly as sad as his version of Hurt, not even close. It's a sad song to begin with, but only a little sadder with Cash singing it. I'm listening to it now.

The entire CD is great, especially "Four Strong Winds", I've listened to it many times now. I didn't find this CD overly sad and wasn't overly anxious to purchase it (after reading the reviews). I'm glad I bought it on it's release day. As far as this longtime Cash fan is concerned, it's not sad at all. [/QUOTE]Is the album out yet? I heard it on Myspace, and your right; not quite as sad as "Hurt" or "Bridge Over Trouble Waters".

[TheWatchman]

It came out Tuesday. $12.99 at Best Buy.

[charlene]

Miami Herald:
Posted on Fri, Jul. 07, 2006email thisprint this
ALBUM REVIEWS
Cash's adieu: grief, vulnerability are painfully clearhcohen@MiamiHerald.com
• FOLK

JOHNNY CASH

American V: A Hundred Highways

American/Lost Highway

*** ½

arena 50 years ago, and a train song, Like the 309, his final composition recorded shortly before his September 2003 death, serves as his exit.

Take me to the depot / Put me to bed / . . .Then load my box / On the 309.

Cash's American V: A Hundred Highways is no more or no less death-obsessed than any of the previous four Rick Rubin-helmed albums that brought Cash well-deserved late-career accolades. If American V takes on a greater resonance than the others, well, singing about death and then following through thrusts this disc into a whole other context.

Cash began recording these 12 songs immediately after the American IV sessions in late 2002 in the last eight months of his life. (Enough remains for a forthcoming American VI, Rubin says, robbing this one ever so slightly of its significance).

While laying tracks, his wife, June Carter Cash, died in May 2003, adding poignancy and clearly influencing the choice of material.

Hear the hurt on Hank and Audrey Williams' mournful On the Evening Train as Cash sings, I pray that God will give me courage / To carry on til we meet again / It's hard to know she's gone forever / They're carrying her home on the evening train.

Cash told Rubin, who produces with his customary economy and class, that he must get into the studio and record for as long as he was able. For Cash, his artistic expression was his life and his life force flows through each and every cut here.

Some days were good, his baritone weathered but comparably strong on tracks like Rod McKuen's sweetly melodic Love's Been Good to Me and the traditional folk foot-stomper God's Gonna Cut You Down.

Other times, on Larry Gatlin's pleading spiritual Help Me and Gordon Lightfoot's '70s love ballad If You Could Read My Mind he was clearly deteriorating, his voice a broken husk with nary enough power to blow dust off the microphone. Lord help me walk another mile / Just one more mile are the first words you hear on the CD. It's difficult not to choke up along with Cash when he reaches the line in Lightfoot's song about the ''movie queen'' who brings ''all the good things out in me'' -- easy to read as a reference to June -- and his voice breaks into a sob on I never thought I could act this way / And I've got to say that I just don't get it.

Cash, the stentorian Man in Black, never has appeared so vulnerable. It's incredibly moving hearing this man stare down death with grace, pathos, acceptance and a discernible hint of humor.

Pod Picks: Like the 309, If You Could Read My Mind, Love's Been Good to Me.

HOWARD COHEN

[GJA]

Downloaded the single. Listening to it right now. Has a very sad quality...but very stirring.

[charlene]

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.

---

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)

---

AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS

Johnny Cash

American/Universal

Sun Rating: 3 out of 5
Next story: Heed this Call