mail: daniel_fjall@hotmail.com
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american recordings III: solitary man american recordings IV: the man comes around
American Records III: Solitary Man Released: 2000 Rating: 7/10 Track listing: 1. I Won’t Back Down/ 2. Solitary Man/ 3. Lucky Old Sun/ 4. One/ 5. Nobody/ 6. I See A Darkness/ 7. The Mercy Seat/ 8. Would You Lay With Me/ 9. Field of Diamonds/ 10. Before My Time/ 11. Country Trash/ 12. Mary of The Wild Moor/ 13. I’m Leavin’ Now/ 14 Wayfaring Stranger In the 90’s Cash started working with producer Rick Rubin and the American Recordings series started. This is the third album, as the title suggests. The concept is a pretty good one, take some originals and fill the rest album with covers. Covers of songs that you’d think someone like Cash normally wouldn’t do. The result is often very pleasing, since Cash manages to add another dimension to those songs. A bit of dignity, a bit of true bitterness and some class in general. This time U2, Tom Petty, Neil Diamond and Nick Cave are among the honored songwriters and Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow are guesting. Although, Solitary Man has a couple of weak spots, there is something about this man’s voice. Something that defines all the great ones and makes it clear why this man has been treated with respect and lasted all these years. The piano driven “The Mercy Seat” is particularly haunting and affecting. It’s a great song overall, but when Cash sings “I’m not afraid to die” it rise above the others. In all this dark pessimism, there are some humor as well. “Nobody” starts out as your usual please-pity-me-songs, but suddenly some fun arrives which makes it stand out from other songs in the same vein. As I said, there are weaker things here, but they are all good. There’s nothing to really complain about. Still, not all song manages to move you the way you expect them to.
American Recordings IV: The Man Comes Around This was the last album Johnny Cash released during his life time. It looks like there will be another album coming out soon, an album he was working on, but didn’t have the time to finish. Anyway, if you gotta go, you might as well go with this. It’s a great album, you see with not too many fillers. And despite the fact that most of the songs are covers, Johnny makes them sound authentic and honest. The man in black dresses them all up in new old fashioned suits and all of a sudden previous songs that sounded ‘fake’ or ‘distant’ breathes full of life and are delivered with class. Class money can’t buy. Sure, the Nine Inch Nail cover, “Hurt”, hardly seems hand picked by Cash, but it sounds just right for him. It’s not the rebellious, contempt against the adult world it was meant to be, but rather a story told by a man who lived his life with not much time left. Even less to set things straight. It’s nostalgia at its worse. It’s pure bitterness by a lonely man. And the repeated piano note is just fantastic. “In My Life” could actually have been Johnny’s personal choice. Whilst The Beatles original recording seemed to be about not forgetting their Liverpool roots, no matter all the fame and money in London and the rest of the world, Johnny Cash turns it into a slow farewell. It’s not bitter as “Hurt”, but still truly affecting in a different way. There are a couple of missteps here and there (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”), but you won’t find anything that makes you want cringe. I mean, he even turns the old standard “Danny Boy” into something grand, which says everything I guess. The title song is evidence of his songwriting skills were still first class and is a great opening track. I’m not sure if closing the album with “We’ll Meet Again” is just fate’s cruel sense of humor and irony, or if it is just right. Either way, see you on the other side Johnny.
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