Embraced by Johnny Cash.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Johnny Cash recently.  Digging out old albums, buying up some new ones and watching some old documentaries I have of him.  I have always liked Cash, but I am particularly feeling his music at the moment and I love both the humour and humanity in his lyrics, as well as the emotion in his more introspective songs.

I have been playing his American Recordings a lot and love the intimacy of the music on offer.  Whether it’s just Johnny and a guitar or whether he is backed up by another one of my favourites, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, his music speaks to me and there is a message to take away from every album somewhere.

Although his music has a gospel quality to it and he has said he wanted to add at least one gospel track to each American Recordings album, you don’t feel as if he is preaching or trying to convert.  Instead you just feel the sincerity of his faith and the comfort he receives from it.  This is a lesson some evangelists or doorstep missionaries could learn!!!

The American Recordings are another Rick Rubin project and he gave Johnny a free reign to create the music he wanted to in the last years of his life.  Rubin recognised Johnny’s place in music history and wanted to honour that and the music they created together is a lasting and fitting legacy.  There are some wonderful covers like Nine Inch Nails ‘Hurt’ which Cash makes his own, U2’s ’One’ and later on in the series he covers Sheryl Crow’s ‘Redemption Day’ which is a wonderful rendering of this already amazing song.  I heartily recommend these albums and if you see them at the right price snap them up quick.

Unchained.

I am also particularly enjoying the prison recordings and both ’At Folsom Prison’ and ’Johnny Cash at San Quentin’ have been played a lot.  I love the atmosphere of these albums.  The inmates whooping and hollering and Cash cajoling and encouraging them adds to the music on offer.  The songs are often based around crime and prison life and this resonates with the inmates, who react, which then resonates with the listener.  It is very potent.  The songs are great stories as well and some are gruesome, some are sad and some are just downright funny.

I also like how in between songs you can hear prison announcements being read out or spoken over tannoy systems and how when wardens step onto stage the crowd boo and jeer, only for Johnny to calm them down again and start into the next song.

If you haven’t heard these albums I can also heartily recommend them.

No doubt in a few days or weeks I’ll be fixated on another artist or album and that’s often how music works for me.  I get a feeling for a particular artist or sound and hold it in a tight, intimate and passionate embrace before letting it go.  I’ll then come back to it now and then over the years to renew my love and relive happy memories.  Each time I do this I learn more and feel different things and it’s never the same experience twice.  I’m sure there are other ways to enjoy music, but this is the way that works for me.  Johnny Cash’s embrace has been especially comforting this time round and I’ve loved finding some new music of his, as well as enjoying some of my old favourites.