{"id":1134,"date":"2012-11-19T16:27:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T16:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2016-08-21T18:16:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-21T18:16:11","slug":"theyve-got-the-back-of-the-man-in-black-johnny-cash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=1134","title":{"rendered":"They’ve got the back of the Man in Black: Johnny Cash"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We Walk the Line: A Celebration of the Music of Johnny Cash<\/em> (LEGACY)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This Legacy CD\/DVD\u00a0set proves that The Man in Black \u201ccame around\u201d consistently throughout his career. Now his fellow artists have, and on this night their collective chemistry was something to behold, perhaps a matter of professional pride in the face of peer competition. Time after time, they\u00a0dug down to a deeper place than you’d imagine.\u00a0It\u2019s a moving testament to a great American life because Cash embodied integrity, suffering, perseverance, redemption, hard-won truth and generosity of spirit, especially for the downtrodden, the forsaken and the outlaw (which may encompass 98% of America today).\u00a0He represented the American ideal of giving everyone a fair shot at the dream.<\/p>\n

A Great Depression baby and son of a sharecropper, Cash’s big-armed embrace of this\u00a0 nation’s vast human underside often felt personal and almost a mission, of sorts. Maybe that’s why he was such a rebel. After all, he may also be\u00a0the only renowned\u00a0person who’s also famous for a photograph of himself flipping the bird. This signifies the importance of defying conventions that calcify our sensitivity to truth\u00a0and to the American ideals that are so easily buried beneath complacent\u00a0consumerism and capitalism. I mean, it\u2019s unlikely any major artist played at a prison until Cash did it, and he changed public awareness of the incarcerated.<\/p>\n

Recorded at Austin City Limits’ <\/em> Moody Theatre on April 20th, Cash’s 80th birthday,\u00a0the show kicks off\u00a0with\u00a0Brandi Carlile’s\u00a0rip-snorting rendition of his cold-blooded \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d\u00a0In the moment, you feel\u00a0that\u00a0she too \u201cshot a man in Reno just to watch him die.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Johnny Cash’s historic performance at Folsom Prison\u00a0in 1968. Courtesy of\u00a0iaanhighes.com<\/em><\/p>\n

In his literally handwritten liner notes to the Folsom Prison album, Cash recalled: “You sit on your cold, steel mattressless bunk and watch a cockroach crawl out from under the filthy commode, and you don’t kill it. You envy the roach as you watch it crawl out under the cell door.”<\/p>\n

Of course, the outlaw in Cash (he was a convicted for drug use, not murder) also had a heart as big as the sun and you felt that when he\u00a0resurrected Hank Williams\u2019 great song \u201cI’m So Lonesome I Could Cry\u201d to prove it, as Amy Lee (of Evanescence) does here, buoyed\u00a0by Greg Leisz\u2019s mournful pedal steel.<\/p>\n

Among several inspired duets is Kris Kristofferson\u00a0with Jamey\u00a0Johnson doing Kristofferson’s\u00a0“Sunday Morning Coming Down.” \u201cThe beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert,” Kristofferson warbles, and you understand the essence of a down-and-out man, whom Cash knew as a shadow\u00a0on his\u00a0shoulder.<\/p>\n

Among the forsaken he identified with were Native Americans, whom he addressed in his 1964 concept album Bitter Tears. <\/em>It includes \u201cThe Ballad of Ira Hayes,\u201d recounting the tragic story of a young Marine who died pathetically after participating in the iconic raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, and dealing\u00a0with that event\u2019s overwhelming publicity and symbolic fervor.<\/p>\n

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The quality of Cash’s character amid suffering is illustrated by his daughter Roseanne Cash, in her\u00a0memoir Composed.<\/em> She’s recounting a moment shortly before her father died of diabetes and neuropathy:<\/p>\n

\u201cLate in the afternoon of the day before I left to go back to New York, Dad stared out the window at the lake and said sadly \u2018The gloaming of the day is the hardest part.\u2019 I said I knew that it was. His head tilted down to his chest. \u2018I feel so bad\u2019 he said, and that was one of the only times in his life — maybe the only time — that I ever heard him complain about his ailments. It was extraordinary, and shocking, to see his stoic resolve crumble before my eyes. \u2018I know Dad,\u2019 I said. \u2018I’m so sorry.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Roseanne honored her father\u2019s legacy has a self-styled historian with her album \u201cThe List,\u201d based on his determinations of the greatest country songs. Even as a gifted songwriter,\u00a0Cash was humble enough to identify and record great songs by others. He also found material in younger generations, such as Nine Inch Nails\u2019 \u201cHurt,\u201d a song of ringing majesty which Lucinda Williams delivers with a voice that sounds like a train of pain barreling right through her heart.<\/p>\n

Similarly Kristofferson sings, \u201cThe tears I cried for that woman will flood you, big river. I\u2019m gonna sit right down here till I die,\u201d and his handsome but shrunken face makes you believe him.<\/p>\n

One caveat concerns\u00a0the show\u2019s emcee, actor Matthew McConaugey. Though well spoken, he apparently got the gig for being Hollywood famous and a Southern good ol\u2019 boy, but his\u00a0laconic delivery is a snooze considering the consistent level of performer energy.\u00a0\u00a0Things never grind to a full halt because there’s always the high-powered house band chomping at the bit.\u00a0 Their supple and muscular propulsion includes arguably the best drummer in roots music, Kenny Aronoff; rock \u2018n\u2019 roll Hall of Fame pianist Ian McLagen, guitarist-singer Buddy Miller and string wizard Leisz.<\/p>\n

Among other notable performers: Willie Nelson, Jamey Johnson, Shooter Jennings, Shelby Lynne, Iron & Wine, Sheryl Crow, Ronnie Dunn, Rhett Miller of The Old 97s, and The Carolina Chocolate Drops (who really tear it up on Cash\u2019s famous duet vehicle with June Carter Cash, \u201cJackson.\u201d).<\/p>\n

The DVD includes a rehearsal of Nelson doing \u201cI Still Miss Someone,\u201d interviews and a \u201cMaking of the show\u201d feature. Nelson\u2019s phrasing remains peerless, able to convey nuances in the way he weaves his words.<\/p>\n

The show ends gloriously, with raucous ensemble sing-along of \u201cI Walk the Line.\u201d But the real climax precedes that, when you sense Cash\u2019s abiding spirit as two of the four original Highwaymen supergroup, Kristofferson and Nelson, sing Jimmy Webb\u2019s \u201cHighwayman,\u201d with its stunning final verse sung by Johnson, a new generation of singer-songwriter. It’s the verse that, on the original Highwayman<\/em> recording, Cash sang:<\/p>\n

I fly a starship across the Universe divide<\/em><\/p>\n

And when I reach the other side<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps I may become a highway man again<\/em><\/p>\n

Or I may simply be a single drop of rain<\/em><\/p>\n

But I will remain<\/em><\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll be back again, and again and again and again…\u00a0 2<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

_____________<\/em><\/p>\n

Show highlights: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=T2t1f12yhao<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Roseanne Cash,\u00a0 Composed, <\/em>Viking 2010, 181<\/p>\n

2 <\/em>Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Highwayman, Columbia 1985<\/em><\/p>\n

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