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As a devotee, Rubin realised (unlike previous producers) that the one thing alone that made Johnny special was his voice. Like a piece of living history those vocal chords always exuded realness. It was this quality that had allowed the Man to stand in front of a hall full of hardbitten criminals and give some of the greatest shows of his life. Like all true artists (and not unlike the mythical land he represented) at his heart was a mighty schism. He'd seen the world from both sides of the prison bars.
With this in mind Rubin recorded an unaccompanied Johnny and his guitar in front of a microphone in his Tennessee home. The results were predictably intimate, but - as Cash started exhibiting the signs of a life spent in the fast lane - also shot through with gripping mortality.
Two songs he re-recorded: the murder ballad, Delia's Gone, and the cowboy lament, Oh, Bury Me Not (Introduction: A Cowboy's Prayer) have a palpable sadness and regret in them that he could never have achieved before. His take on old friend's songs like Kris Kristofferson's Why Me Lord? or Leonard Cohen's Bird On A Wire showed that familiarity never bred contempt in his eyes. A great song was always a great song.
Always, the choice of material is a revelation. The Beast In Me (written by former son-in-law, Nick Lowe) could be autobiographical. And while writers like horrorpunk figurehead Glenn Danzig or Tom Waits probably would never have figured on his radar were it not for Rubin; time and again the duo found songs that were, in Cash's hands, to take on new life. This willingness to experiment was to set a precedent: Subsequent albums were to see him work magic on material from Nine Inch Nails to U2 and Depeche Mode. But Johnny Cash's final road to redemption and artistic fulfillment starts here... --Chris Jones
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This 1994 album won the Grammy Award for Contemporary Folk recording, and so I freely admit that my choice might have something to do with my affection for authentic folk music and my usual avoidance of country music. The album was responsible for Cash's final reemergence as a major figure in contemporary American music and if you do not know the story the key parts are that Cash signed with Rick Rubin's American Recordings. Rubin had produced Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys but topped himself by having Carter record mostly his own songs accompanied only by himself on a guitar. For those of us familiar with the recordings of America's troubadour Woody Guthrie or the early New York City recordings of Bob Dylan, this approach makes perfect sense. This is Johnny Cash stripped down to the essentials and they are pretty impressive.
This is proven with the opening track, "Delia's Gone," which is probably the best known track from the album since it was a music video that introduced Cash on MTV to the alternative-grunge generation. There are several choice covers on which Cash ruins the songs for their creators by making them their own, such as Nick Lowe's "The Beast in Me," Kris Kristofferson's "Why Me Lord?", Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire," and Tom Waits' "Down There by the Train." But the original songs are the real gems here, including "Redemption" and "Like a Soldier." The two live tracks recorded at L.A.'s Viper Room seem unnecessary, but that is how a lot of people first heard Cash sing, so it is hard to question it as unappropriate. Besides, Cash does his own liner notes. If you have never heard "American Recordings," the first of four solid albums Cash recorded with Rubin, then this is as good as time as any. As the Man in Black could have told you himself, better late than never.
Stripped down to only his guitar and that wonderful deep voice, Cash commands a presence so powerful and stirring these songs are carved in granite for witnesses to marvel at many, many years from now.
And the songs themselves, whether from his own pen, or from those of others, all now become Johnny Cash songs.It almost doesn't matter the talents behind such classics as "Why Me Lord" or "Bird On The Wire", the composers give way to the singer, because it's the way Johnny Cash gives a voice to the infatuated murderer in "Delia's Gone", or to the Vietnam veteran in "Drive On", or to his own deepest fears in "The Beast In Me", or to his own highest beliefs in "Redemption" or "Down There By The Train", or to his own long, troubled life in "Like A Soldier" or "Let The Train Blow The Whistle", that make this album a deeply honest journey into the artists own sucesses and failings.But one that connects to all those willing to listen for in doing so he speaks for all the little parts in whole of us that make up the whole, neither fully good or completely bad.Cash had the unique gift of being able to take you to the very gates of hell with one song, but always offer up the chance of redemption with the next.
So if you have any interest in Johnny Cash, in music, or just in what makes us who we are, then buy this album, buy the other American Recordings in the series, buy the "Unearthed" boxset, just so you can say you saw and heard the legendary Man in Black walk and talk it like only he could, for the very final time.
'Delia's Gone' is a fitting successor of 'Folsom Prison Blues', giving even the most irredeemable criminal a voice; 'The Beast in Me', 'Why Me Lord' and 'Redemption' speak of Cash's own struggles with his demons and his eventual salvation; 'Drive On' and 'Let The Train Blow The Whistle' burn with Cash's macho swagger;'The Man Who Couldn't Cry' is just plain hilarious.
A unique musical experience transcending genre, this is the artist unadorned as genius. Like Cash himself, this is elegantly simple, bleakly compelling, and untimately inspirational and transfiguring. The perfect intoduction to the greatest figure in modern music, who though greatly missed, still exerts a powerful presence.
This is one of the most depressing albums that he's ever done. Read more
Cash was approaching the end of his life when this was recorded and the mood reflects this. Read more
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