#366 - Johnny Cash - American Recordings (1994)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

Released on April 26, 1994 on American Recordings and produced by Rick Rubin this is the 81st album by the Country, Rock and Roll, Rockabilly, Blues, Folk, Gospel legend.

Born J.R. Cash into a poor cotton farming family in Kingsland, Arkansas in 1932 by the time he was five he was working in the fields and singing alongside his family.

A member of a big musical family he was taught guitar by his mom at 12 years old which was the same year that J.R. was profoundly affected by the accidental death of his beloved 14 year old brother Jack and overnight became an introspective loner.

Although his oldest brother Roy was already a working musician it wasn’t until J.R. joined the Air Force in 1950 and was stationed in Germany that he bought his own first guitar on which he immediately started writing some of his most iconic songs. The Air Force is also where he became known as John R. Cash.

A few years later he was out of the service, had a wife and family, and held several jobs while studying to be a radio announcer while hoping to pursue his musical dream.

That dream came true after he showed up at Sam Phillip’s Memphis record company Sun Records.

After an initial rejection due to his old fashioned Gospel roots Johnny, as he was now known, came back with a new Rockabilly sound and by 1955 was a Sun Records artist.

Soon his famous baritone/bass vocals, “Man in Black” persona, dark songs of outcasts and outlaws, and simple but direct live introduction, “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” made him a worldwide star.

Fast forward through almost 40 years of fame, fortune, highs, lows, movies, t.v. shows, addiction, recovery, relapses, serious health issues, and a long fallow period in the weeds of the music industry that saw him dropped from his record deal after thirty years.

He really only found some success as a member of the Country supergroup The Highwaymen with Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings.

Despite his comparatively waning popularity at the time he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, one of only a handful of country artists ever invited.

That same year Rick Rubin saw him at a Bob Dylan tribute concert and believed that Cash had another act in him.

Rubin offered him a record deal with his formerly-Def American label that not only guaranteed a wealth of artistic control but a chance to make his first true solo album.

It was a minimalist and spartan endeavor with just Johnny and his guitar intimately singing and playing.

Splitting recording locations between Johnny’s Tennessee cabin, Rick’s living room, and Johnny Depp’s Viper Room this collection of covers, new originals, and revisited older material took about 8 days to record.

To say it was a come back would be an understatement.

It was met with near-perfect critical acclaim and despite not charting high or being much of a commercial success it won Johnny the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and it not only revitalized his career but both humanized him and revived his legacy.

It was followed by three more American Recordings volumes during his lifetime and two more posthumously.

Tragically Johnny died of complications from diabetes in 2003, four months after the death of his beloved wife of 35 years, June Carter.

In 2005 the movie of his life, “Walk the Line” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon became the then all-time highest grossing music biopic bringing his story to countless new generations.

He remains one of the best selling musical artists of all time with over 90 million records sold.