By Thomas Conner
© TULSA WORLD Johnny Cash is cool. Johnny Cash is a rebel. Johnny Cash is an American myth. Johnny Cash is back. Again. Forging through his fourth decade of recording, Cash has once again fired boosters in his career no one would have guessed he had. After hooking up with hip, young rock and rap producer Rick Rubin and signing to the rock label American Recordings, Cash turned out one of the most phenomenal albums of his career, 1994's “American Recordings.'' This year, he's back with another expectations-breaker. “Unchained'' finds the legendary Man in Black singing better than ever before and covering everything from old Cash originals like “Mean-Eyed Cat'' to songs by Beck and Soundgarden. Like Tony Bennett, Cash has found himself a fatherly icon amongst the MTV crowd. “Unchained'' debuted this week at No. 26 on the Billboard country chart. Not bad for a country artist of any era, but particularly great for someone who's been counted out of the game as many times as Cash has. “I haven't had (a record) that high in a long time,'' Cash said in an interview last week. “It feels good. It feels like the '50s all over again.'' Cash was let go from Columbia Records in 1986 and moved to Mercury, where things just didn't blossom like he expected. Once free of Mercury, Cash wondered what path he would take next. That's when Rubin called. “Rick came looking for me,'' Cash said. “I was playing a show in California, and he called my manager and asked if we could talk. Once I found out who he was, I said, 'Why in the world would he be interested in me?' And I asked him that. He said he knew my work and that he wanted to sit me down, give me and microphone and a guitar and let me sing everything I wanted, and then he'd find a way to make an album out of it. We let the idea sit a while, and he was still serious about it months later. He made me believe I could do what I really wanted to do.'' See, even American legends need a little encouragement. Rubin's devotion to the project convinced Cash to sign up, and the result was “American Recordings,'' an astonishing guitar-and-voice affair that revived Cash among his two generations of fans and added a third — a new group of young admirers, lured by the vogue “Unplugged'' nature of the record and by the historical awe that surrounds the figure of Cash. On “Unchained,'' which features Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as the backing band, Cash keeps up his balancing act between the old and new fans. For the longtime fans, he covers another Carter Family tune (“Kneeling Drunkard's Plea'') and finishes a Cash original that wasn't finished the first time he recorded it (“Mean Eyed Cat''). For the new fans, Cash covers a couple of modern rock pioneers and does so with the power and grace that has tamed all musical influences around him these 40-odd years. The new disc opens with “Rowboat,'' a plaintive love lament written by the cutting edge's boy wonder, Beck. “I used him as an opener a year and a half ago in L.A., and he sang some Carter Family Appalachian things. He also sang 'Rowboat,' and I really liked it,'' Cash said. The Soundgarden cover, “Rusty Cage,'' didn't come to him so easily. Rubin asked Cash if he'd heard the song; Cash said no, so Rubin played him the Soundgarden album. “Right away I said, 'That's not for me. No way. I can't record that song.' But Rick said, 'What if we work up an arrangement that feels comfortable for you,' and I thought about it. The lyrics really fascinated me. It's like the Beat look at a love affair -- very mystical, interpret-it-your-own-way kind of lyrics. But I just didn't think there was any way. They worked a long time, and it worked out. Now it's my favorite song that I perform,'' Cash said. The choice of new material is more than mere kow-towing to the current hip couture, but Cash said it's nice to have more young fans. The monumental legacy of Cash's career doesn't seem to be daunting to the new fans, either, and Cash said there's really no prerequisite for understanding his music. “You know, the 'American Recordings' was really what I wanted people to hear from me — just me and my guitar. That's why I like any country artist.'' And what's next for this cornerstone of country music, and how many more boosters does he have to fire in his career? For now, Cash said he's just taking one show at a time, entertaining his fans — from each generation — as his highest priority. “I've been around twice now. This is my third time around,'' Cash said. “Everything else from now on is gravy.'' Comments are closed.
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Thomas Conner
These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office. Archives
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