Johnny Cash - American Recordings
I never thought I’d like country music until I played a track from this on RTR’s Morning Magazine; it blew me away!
Rick Rubin, who has produced the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Public Enemy (among others), understood that Cash’s influence was much deeper than any one tradition and he saw that Cash could still make important music. Rubin let Cash sing what he wanted to sing and left him with only his voice and guitar.
American Recordings is a collection of songs about love, death, murder and betrayal by writers like Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Cash himself.
The opening track Delia’s Gone is an old folk blues song that can be traced back to Blind Willie McTell in the 1920’s. Cash had recorded it before, but this version was darker and brutal, so much so that MTV refused to play the video.
The founders of country music weren’t pretty boys who strutted around singing flossy songs with no emotion. They sang about the hard times, the heartbreak, the loss, and the depravity of life and death. This album laid the foundations for a multi-album collaboration between Rubin and Cash.
The impact of Johnny Cash on country, blues, and rock is enormous; this album found Cash a new audience, well outside of country.
If you are looking for something more substantial than the latest Zeppelin reissue, you won’t regret a minute of this terrific album.
Original Release Date: 1994
Re-issue: 2002
