Country music`s ”Man in Black” is revealed in a much less monochromatic light in a new 75-song, three-CD boxed set called ”The Essential Johnny Cash” on Columbia/Legacy Records. Spanning the years 1955 to 1983, this well- presented collection`s depth and scope may surprise those who see Cash as a stylistic Johnny One-Note.
The collection follows his forays into rockabilly, gospel, folk and blues, but despite all the twists and turns, what`s most striking is how little the elemental Johnny Cash sound has changed. That familiar booming-if a bit wobbly-baritone voice is instantly recognizable even on his first release, ”Hey Porter,” on Sun Records in 1955.
Running thematically throughout his work is Cash`s identification with the common man. Himself the son of an Arkansas sharecropper, Cash, like kindred spirit Merle Haggard, has always sung the praises of farmers, coal miners, factory workers and trainmen. He`s also spoken up for the
disenfranchised in his songs, whether migrant workers, Native Americans or convicts.
As Cash himself put it in his autobiographical ”Man in Black”: ”I wear the black for the poor and the beaten-down/Living in the hopeless, hungry side of town/I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime/But is there because he`s a victim of the times.”
A few eyebrows may have been raised when Cash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January, but the 15 tracks included here from his early years with Sam Phillips` Memphis-based Sun Records displays his rockabilly pedigree. One of Cash`s best Sun-era songs is the rollicking ”Get Rhythm,” which Cash, in the album notes, says he wrote for Elvis.
A teen idol he was not meant to be, and when Cash joined Columbia Records in 1958-his musical home for the next 28 years-he dropped any pretense of being a pop artist.
Cash`s early Columbia material didn`t differ wildly from his initial Sun hits. ”Walking the Blues” was plain and simply the white man`s blues, while ”Pickin` Time” and ”Five Feet High and Rising” were two more songs inspired by his Arkansas youth.
Unfortunately, Cash`s move to Columbia coincided with a dark period in which he was addicted to amphetamines. From 1958 to 1968 Cash`s recordings were all over the map. There were folk-oriented songs, like a cringe-inducing eight-minute version of ”The Legend of John Henry`s Hammer,” complete with recitation and sound effects. He also recorded a fairly undistinguished string of country chestnuts, including ”Dark As a Dungeon,” ”The Long Black Veil” and the bluegrass standard ”Orange Blossom Special.” Then there were the novelty songs, like ”The Rebel-Johnny Yuma” and the indescribably awful
”Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog.”
There were some bright moments from this period, though. ”Don`t Take Your Guns to Town” was one of the first-and perhaps the best-of his gunfighter epics, and reached No. 1 on the country charts. His version of
”The Ballad of Ira Hayes” is an affecting story of the Native American World War II hero`s sad demise, while ”Ring of Fire” sounds as harrowing today as it did when it made the pop Top 20 in 1963.
Finally free of his addiction to pills and happily married to June Carter, Cash was about to enter his most fertile period in the late `60s. Two landmark live albums-”At Folsom Prison” in 1968 and ”Live at San Quentin” a year later-were watershed albums for Cash. They produced two of his best-known pop hits, a remake of ”Folsom Prison Blues” and Shel Silverstein`s novelty song, ”A Boy Named Sue.” Another song from the San Quentin album,
”San Quentin (number) 2,” remains the most chilling of his numerous prison songs: ”San Quentin may you rot and burn in hell/May your walls fall and I live to tell/San Quentin you`ve been a living hell to me.”
As the political and social turmoil of the late `60s was reaching its peak, Cash broke with most of his fellow country stars by not only listening to the voices of the young but embracing them on songs like ”What Is Truth.” He sang on Bob Dylan`s 1968 ”Nashville Skyline” album and recorded Dylan`s
”Wanted Man.” He also championed another iconoclastic songwriter, the relatively unknown Kris Kristofferson, making his ”Sunday Morning Coming Down” a No. 1 country hit in 1970.
By the mid-`70s most of Cash`s biggest hits were behind him, but ”The Essential Johnny Cash” yields a few more gems, including a couple of nostalgic looks back on his rockabilly days in ”Rockabilly Blues (Texas 1955)” and ”I Will Rock and Roll With You,” and an uptempo version of the Rolling Stones` ”No Expectations.”
Before Cash left Columbia and switched to Mercury Records, he cut a version of Bruce Springsteen`s bleak ”Highway Patrolman” that possibly surpasses the original.
Although he`s had some hits since leaving Columbia and remains a popular concert draw today, he admits the 75 songs collected here represent his best work. In his notes for the booklet accompanying this compilation he wonders whether the bosses at Japan`s Sony Corp., which now owns Columbia Records, appreciate what the music collected here means to him: ”Do they understand that it`s a piece of my life, a piece of my heart, a piece of my soul? I hope so, because it is.”
The fact that ”The Essential Johnny Cash” exists at all should be assurance enough that they do.
