Johnny Cash - "American V: A Hundred Highways" released

The Seeker of Good Songs

Well-Known Member
I just read that the new Johnny Cash album has been released. I knew one was in line, but didn't know it was out yet.

from: http://www.livedaily.com/news/10331.html?t=103


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

Johnny Cash was a busy "Man in Black" in the months prior to his death on Sept. 12, 2003. He recorded a batch of new material with producer Rick Rubin, the result of which can be heard on this fifth chapter to Cash's acclaimed "American" series.
Like with previous "American" trips, "A Hundred Highways" features the singer tackling a variety of material. The album includes the traditional spiritual "God's Gonna Cut You Down" as well as songs written by Hank Williams, Rod McKuen and Bruce Springsteen. Cash, who was 71 at the time of his death, also sang two originals on the collection--"I Came to Believe" and "Like the 309." The former is a tune that Cash wrote and originally recorded early in his career. The latter, which is the last song Cash wrote and recorded, incorporates one of the singer's favorite lyrical motifs--trains.
 
I've had it since last Friday, it's bloody wonderful.
Single is "God's gonna cut you down", the ole traditional song that Moby sampled on one of his, er, sampling albums.
Another highlight is his cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "If you could read my mind", the voice is frail and weak, but the passion is all there.
One of the releases of the year, and no mistake.
 
Album of the Year (sorry, Moz)!!!

I listened to the record this evening, for the first time, and wept like a child the whole way through. :( And I'm not even a fan of Cash or his work.

Buy this record! Sell Ringleader (or even Quarry) if you have to.

Johnny Cash R.I.P.

cash060706105953346wideweb300x.jpg
 
Codreanu said:
Album of the Year (sorry, Moz)!!!

I listened to the record this evening, for the first time, and wept like a child the whole way through. :( And I'm not even a fan of Cash or his work.

Buy this record! Sell Ringleader (or even Quarry) if you have to.

Johnny Cash R.I.P.

cash060706105953346wideweb300x.jpg


Wow!
I was also not a previous fan but now I'm very intrigued!
What else do you have to say about it?
 
I'm sure it's great, but as an aside, you MUST have a Sun Years hits collection AT LEAST in your Cash Collection. The live prison albums are must haves too. There's so much more, but start with these. Moz is #1 in my heart, but I love Johnny Cash. (FYI Boz does Rock & Roll Ruby on a Cash tribute album.)
 
~El Boydelz~ said:
I'm sure it's great, but as an aside, you MUST have a Sun Years hits collection AT LEAST in your Cash Collection. The live prison albums are must haves too. There's so much more, but start with these. Moz is #1 in my heart, but I love Johnny Cash. (FYI Boz does Rock & Roll Ruby on a Cash tribute album.)

The thing is, I have heard and listened to the main stuff he's known for, it's just never done anything for me. (and for Cod it seems)

But if this album can move Cod like this, then it must be pretty special.
 
All due respect to his classic works, I have some of them, and they're good, but the American recordings are really, really good, and I find them far more relevant, and more intimate, than any of the other stuff he's done.

I highly recommend 4 if you have none of them, but the 5th, the newest, is great too.




~El Boydelz~ said:
I'm sure it's great, but as an aside, you MUST have a Sun Years hits collection AT LEAST in your Cash Collection. The live prison albums are must haves too. There's so much more, but start with these. Moz is #1 in my heart, but I love Johnny Cash. (FYI Boz does Rock & Roll Ruby on a Cash tribute album.)
 
Codreanu said:
Album of the Year (sorry, Moz)!!!

I listened to the record this evening, for the first time, and wept like a child the whole way through. :( And I'm not even a fan of Cash or his work.

As I have said in some other post, I am not a "weeper" but I too felt a couple "choke-ups" while listening to this album, especially track 6 the Hank Williams song "On The Evening Train". I don't know if it's that I am aging or what but certain songs just get to me. Probably because of being a parent and just relating to certain circumstances and how I would feel in the singer's place.

I am not one to judge "best of's" and such but this is a great album.

It is almost like Cash new his time was near and these songs are telling his last story...his plans of moving on.

And as others have said...I was never a big fan of Cash's earlier works but the American recordings got me interested in him. Part of it is the "spirituals" that he does which I have a liking for.
 
dallow_bg said:
What else do you have to say about it?
Well, I have only listened once, so I will defer to the critics, who speak better and more perceptively of these things. I believe, through the media, the stage has been set well enough in advance so that even the most casual listener already knows the deathbed tragedy he is witnessing, that it is a final act. The only thing I wish to remark is the utter perfection of the, mostly spare and elegaic, arrangements; nothing was overdone, just enough to punch a black nimbus through the owl-lit imagery. I'd like to give the producer a big hug!

And that vocal! The voice (a decomposing baritone) is pushed up front and given just enough compositional "shading" to cast its brokenness into deeper relief. I would have you imagine the deep vertical fracturing of black marble; a bronze seen through olives and milk; heads of grain bowed in sunlight's last golden fizz, collapsing slow into autumnal piles, brought to harvest under Homeric dusk... (okay, now I'm just getting silly and carried away :()
 
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I have always been a fan of Johnny Cash. I suppose it's the subject manner of his recordings, loss of faith, regaining faith, battling his demons of drink and drugs and singing about death. This is a beautiful death mask.
 
This album is quite powerful because of the story behind it, but musically it's not Cash's best. In fact, I found that each of the American recordings declined in quality from one to the other. The first American album is by far the best of the five. The box set of unreleased material - Unearthed - also has some gems. But if you want to hear Cash at his best, I'd recommend the newly released Personal File over the fifth American album. It contains about 50 unreleased solo Cash performances, mostly from the early 70's, that are all truly remarkable...
 
JOHNNY CASH'S "AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS" ENTERS THE CHARTS AT ..1

This Marks the Man In Black's First-Ever Number One Debut


Nashville, TN - July 12, 2006 -- Johnny Cash's "American V: A Hundred Highways" (American Recordings/Lost Highway) debuts at Number One on both the Billboard Top 200 Albums and Top Country Albums charts. The album, which was released on the Fourth of July, takes the top spot with sales in excess of 88,000 copies, according to Neilsen/Soundscan.

Since 1958, while seven of Cash's albums have reached Number One on Billboard's Country Album charts, only one other album of his has reached the Number One position on Billboard's Top Albums charts - 1969's "Johnny Cash at San Quentin." "American V" is Cash's first-ever release to debut at Number One.

"It meant so much for Johnny to be accepted by a new audience," said Rick Rubin, who produced "American V" and heads up Cash's label, American Recordings. "Nothing would make him more proud than this overwhelming vote of acceptance. Thank you."

"American V: A Hundred Highways," is the fifth installment of Cash's critically-acclaimed American Recordings series, and was recorded in the months leading up to his passing on September 12, 2003. The 12 songs on the CD address love, life, trains, mortality and faith, and the result is an album that is sparse, honest, and inherently beautiful. "American V" has also received tremendous media praise â "...remarkable"/Rolling Stone; "...a powerful, final statement...4-stars"/People; "...arresting"/Washington Post; "...sad and gorgeous"/Village Voice; and Entertainment Weekly's, "Johnny Cash's latest shows he still has the power."
 
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