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Johnny Cash



Johnny Cash With His Hot And Blue Guitar 8½ ( 1957 )
Rock Island Line / I Heard That Lonesome Whistle / If The Good Lord's Willing / Country Boy / Cry Cry Cry / So Doggone Lonesome / Remember Me / I Was There When It Happened / I Walk The Line / Wreck Of The Old 97 / Folsom Prison Blues / Doin' My Time

Cash and the Tennessee Two and his first album released on Sun in 1957. Indeed, it was the first proper LP ever released on Sun Records. There's four of his hit singles here, there's b-sides, there's other songs dug out by Cash, a man who wanted to keep music alive. On the best Johnny Cash discography site i've found here they list the Leadbelly tune later made famous by Lonnie Donergan ( the man who kick-started The Beatles! ) as a Johnny Cash composition. It's easy to see why, the entire album has a seamless sound and style. It's not really the classic sun sound here, Johnny was different right from the start. A sparse sound, true enough. Yet, energetic rockabilly country rather than Rock n Roll, yet the beginnings of Rock n Roll are as much here as they were on the early Elvis sessions. A good half the album was written by Johnny Cash then, alongside old folk and country tunes. 'Cry Cry Cry' and 'I Walk The Line' were both Cash originals and it's not bad if you can write two all time timeless classics to put on your debut, is it? Oh, forgot about 'Folsom Prison Blues'. That makes three alltime classics then? Well, yes. It does. Takes some doing, try to think of many other debut albums that contain such classic originals. If you say 'The Beatles' at this stage, then i'll shoot you in the ass, for having such a lousy memory. Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly. These were the superstars. The Beatles were a phenomenom, fueled by looks and hype, as much as actual talent. Anyway, this is the album where we really do get to hear the king of the shuffle. I played this album to an ex-girlfriend, dubbing Cash as such, and she was in hysterics soon afterwards. The classic Cash sun records sounds, sparse, minimal yet energetic. Cash made an immediate impact, admiring Hank Williams, Leadbelly and numerous other influences but not wanting to be a copy of them. Oh, apparently the version of 'CountryBoy' here is different on CD as it was on the original LP version. It's more sparse, solo Johnny, on the CD version.

'So Doggone Lonesome', hey, another Cash original! Another stunner on this actually very little LP that was soon replaced by numerous hits compilations. Still, Johnny talking about the tune, the immortal classic 'I Walk The Line'? I never got that chord progression out of my mind-from E to A to D back to A to E to B 7th back to E. It broke all the musical laws in history, but I couldn't forget it. . It was more or less an accident. All the best discoveries need an element of luck. Yet, you need to be determined and a searcher of new thoughts to find that luck. Johnny Cash was such a man. Still, you Beatle freaks out there? During 'Cry Cry Cry', Johnny rhymes 'Try Try Try', 'Bye Bye Bye' and 'Lie Lie Lie' with 'Cry Cry Cry'. Still, Johnny lent some actual authority, plus sheer sense of fun, plus meaning, because the entire song taken as a whole is genuine. You know, it's not 'Love, love me do. I know I love you....' I have nothing against The Beatles, as my Beatles ratings will show you, yet Cash at one stage was selling more records than The Beatles in the US. Those pesky country charts? Yeah, THOSE charts. Country music is huge in the USA. I've never lived there, yet it doesn't take a huge amount of discussion and reading to learn facts and figures or historical thoughts. Still, ignoring all speculation, any new Cash convert is likely to be very pleased with this debut LP. Indeed, get this and three other 'proper' Cash LPs rather than a compilation, and you'll be laughing and far better off than buying 'The Essential' or some other kind of Record Company created hits LP. You know? Hello, this is Johnny Cash. What more do you need to know?

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Sun lost Johnny to Columbia, yet enough material was in the vaults to release more Cash Lps. 'Sings Songs That Made Him Famous' opens with the number 14 billboard hit song, 'Ballad Of A Teenage Queen'. 'Guess Things Happen That Way' hit #11. B-sides such as 'There You Go, 'Don't Make Me Go', 'Big River' and 'You're The Nearest Thing To Heaven' sit alongside material recorded across '57 and '58 that had yet to see a release. Of course, you could pick yourself up a Johnny Cash 'Sun Records' collection and be very happy, but what romance is there in doing that? Anyway, for the record, 'Sings Songs That Made Him Famous' is very nearly as good as the Cash debut LP and for good reason. The list of classics almost fall over each other to eagerly present themselves to a listener. The first three songs especially rank as all time classics. Two a-sides, one b-side ( 'There You Go' ) equally as good, or very nearly, as the a-sides. It was a world in which singles ruled, albums were still in their rock n roll infancy. A classical LP or a jazz LP might be taken seriously. The likes of Elvis, Johnny, whomever..... the LP was very much a rounding up excersize, purely a money-making excersize to capitalize on the strange individuals who sought to buy LPs rather than 45s. Remaining classics here? Well, 'Guess Things Happen That Way' and 'The Nearest Thing To Heaven', obviously.

Not everything is a tip-top of the poppermost here for an album of hits and filler. 'Dont Make Go' and 'The Ways Of A Woman In Love' lack the distinctive-ness of prime Johnny Cash, although the Sun Studio's echo etc is still there. So quite such distinguished material, although 'The Ways Of A Woman In Love' does feature a stupendously fun honky-tonk piano section. The closing 'Big River' is also fun, Johnny himself only taking the piece semi-seriously in an attempt to inject some fun into proceedings. It works, his laughs, the stabbing guitar parts ( stabbing quietly, mind you ) all raise a grin. A brief twenty-eight minute long LP thus ends and we're all none the wiser and if we'd been around at the time would have no doubt bought the 45s. If we had, and still had them now, we'd be locking them up in a display case, such is their legendary status. The album still only gets 'an 8' though.

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'Greatest'? Well, it's no such thing clearly. Where are the hits? Already used up by Sun, bar one or two, naturally. Still, somebody was thinking of something ( unless it was pure chance ) because 'Greatest Johnny Cash' sees our good friend in black moving towards more straightforward ( ish ) country, rather than the rockabilly that had made his name. It's interesting to note similarities between a tune such as 'Goodbye Little Darlin' and Elvis Presley's Sun ballad material. It's definitely there, the atmosphere of the room comes through and Mr Cash proves himself a damn fine vocalist, that's if he hadn't already. Indeed, the first and last tunes here and perhaps the best the album has to offer. 'Goodbye Little Darlin' is all atmosphere, surpremely so, topped off by a wonderful Cash vocal. 'Get Rhythm' was already at least two years old, having seen the light of day as the b-side to 'Walk In Line'. It's a piece of typically energetic Johnny Cash rockabilly train shuffle. Yes, sir. In a similar vein is 'Hey Good Lookin', Johnny sings it with due reverence and it's a fine couple of minutes of musical entertainment. The barroom piano enters the fray as Johnny no doubt downs a beer or three lamenting the fact he forgot to remember to forget 'her'. Well, it's well worn country themes, less so in the late fifties mind you. We've worn the same themes plenty of times since then, too. You can tell i'm struggling to review these Cash LPs can't you? When he joined Columbia, he'd quickly work up a series of concept albums, albums that didn't always meet with the record company approval, but at least there seemed to be a point in making and releasing them. Which isn't quite the case here.

'Katy Too' is a fine slice of the classic Johnny Cash shuffle, 'Luther Played The Boogie' is Johnny in pure entertainment mode, yet that's not a bad thing. He was a very fine entertainer, let's face it. Music for the child in us all, whether the song was about dying or something else, who cared? Johnny could cut across boundaries, appealing to rock and country fans alike. Hat's off. Oh yes. There's no point to this album at all, as i've already hinted. It's also even shorter than 'Songs That Made Him Famous', but we don't really mind. A box-set containing these three Sun LPs would make a fine gift for any music lover, as far as i'm concerned.

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Johnny Cash, the Tennesee Two and The Jordinaires? Well, it's a fairly legendary combination. The style hasn't changed a lot though for the first Johnny Cash LP for Columbia. The Jordinaires provide distinctive backing vocals and musically, the same railroad shuffle as heard on Sun is prevailant. We've twelve songs lasting twenty nine minutes in total, so by today's standards, still a little poor value for money wise. Reissues add a further six songs, but it's the original twelve track LP i'm more concerned about. In short, it's great. Hardly a weak cut here and whilst the songs contained within arguably aren't as famous as many of his early sun hits, a couple of tunes here did become pop-hits as well as country hits and the LP as a whole shifted a lot of units. Johnny Cash was the man! The LP is more cohesive arguably than his Sun efforts thanks to the fact the cuts were recorded over a two month, three session period, rather than a year year period, as could happen with Sun. Five of the twelve songs are Cash compositions, but everything is made his own anyway. Well, let's take the rather lack-lustre 'Suppertime' as an example. Not the finest thing here, but it's made by the spoken word section, Johnny suddenly coming across with great distinction and authority after sounding rather bored with the rest of the song. Still, it's an appropriate album closer and very country. The pedal steel sound is to thank for that. 'That's All Over' I just can't get out of my head. A very simple tune, but Johnny is just irresistable here. The self penned 'Frankie's Man, Johnny' and 'Don't Take Your Guns To Town' reveal Cash to be an accomplished story-teller. The structure and style of the lyrics are markedly different to the cover material. Not so much songs with a verse, chorus, verse structure, rather a continous selection of verse, accompanied by a tagline or two as such, representing a chorus of sorts. It works, 'Frankie's Man, Johnny' especially, another stone-cold Cash classic.

'That's Enough' and 'Shepherd Of My Heart' reveal the more spiritual side of Cash, something that would expanded upon on further albums. A song such as the mawkish in other hands 'That's Enough' is turned into something utterly believable and catchy in Cash's hands. Right from the start, the baritone voice of Johnny Cash just has such tremendous believability and authority, always a good thing for any country singer to have. Ah, 'One More Ride' is just so great, Magical/silly backing vocals from The Jordinaires included. You know, those kind of fifties/sixties 'bah, ba dah' backing vocals by guys you imagine perform in sharply pressed suits, very clean cut. What else? Ah, I don't know. Just buy the damn thing already, it's an album that's fast become a Cash favourite of mine. You can pick it up these days as a fantastic 'two-fer', two albums for about £6? Bargain!

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'Hymns By Johnny Cash' is another release from Columbia/Legacy. The story goes that Sam Phillips wasn't keen on allowing Johnny to record and release a gospel album. Johnny took up a lucrative contract with Columbia and this album is part of the reason why. Another sound business deal by Sam Phillips clearly, 'Hymns' went onto sell half a million copies. Many of the songs are original, although a few Cash interpretations do feature. The sound of the entire LP doesn't really resemble that of gospel song. The albums varies between the expected Cash boom-chick-boom guitar sound and slower, more straightforward relaxed strums, often featuring angelic style 50s harmony. 'Hymns By Johnny Cash' set up a pattern for future Cash LPs. A mix of originals and interpretations based around a moral theme. The album does come across more as 'country-hymns', but we'll let that pass. It's a really relaxing listen, although 'It Was Jesus' is a rousing opening, 'I Call Him' is another uptempo tune whilst the Cash version of 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' is dramatically altered by Cash. His trademark acoustic and spacious sound allows for the phrasing of the words to be styled by Cash. I'm not a religious man as such and despise the sport of Rugby, but I like listening to Johnny's version of the tune. Figure it out

'Hell Be A Friend' is wonderful, this is why I listen to Johnny! Well, the lyrics are great. Well god told noah to build an ark, it's gonna rain, it's gonna be dark. Let the animals in two by two, and don't let a sinful man through. Quickly typed that whilst listening, it goes something like that anyway. Get entertained AND educated and get that famous Cash shuffle all within the same song. Excellent! 'These things shall pass' is soothing, 'Snow In His Hair' is corny, although this tune about Snow in his father's hair, the son joining his father in heaven, a halo around his fathers head. I cherish the snow and his hair' says Johnny. There's snow in his hair and i helped but it there, a halo of worry and care Overall, whilst 'Hymns By Johnny Cash' may not be to everybody's taste, it's a worthwhile addition to the mighty Cash back-catalogue and well worth picking up when you see it in the shops.

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An early Americana concept album from Johnny, the title says it all, 'Songs Of Our Soil'. Hence, a song about a flood witnessed by Johnny aged 5, remembered and turned into a tune 'Five Feet High And Rising', also the nearest this album gets to true classic cash. The lyrics across the albums twelve tracks are very folk and it comes as no surprise to see and hear Cash do his own version of 'Sloop John B' made famous by The Beach Boys. Titled here 'I Wanna Go Home' it remains an effective folk/country tune, although a world removed from what it would become in The Beach Boys hands, of course. Most of these songs were recorded in a single day, the concept is a lot looser than later ( and superior? ) Cash efforts and in his long history of making music, 'Songs Of Our Soil' is neither a disgrace nor an essential work. For starters, it's very short. Without the bonus tracks on the reissue, this album lasts a grand total of twenty three minutes. Even the reissue clocks in at under half an hour. This is likely to put off all but the Cash collector, yet the album still contains some fine material. Johnny would rarely let his quality slip across five decades or so of music making. So, 'Five Feet High And Rising' was a hit song, drunks, farming, witnessed real and imagined events and a loose American theme runs through the other eleven songs.

'Great Speckled Bird' is a nice tune with laid-back Country Piano, even a slice of pedal steel. Whatever style Cash was covering it was his style that made it work. The spareness and space and that deep baritone also connect and combine - they do so here, too. 'My Grandfathers Clock' is impossible to resist even though it's about a clock stopping when a persons father dies. Another favourite of mine here is 'Hank And Joe And Me', I do like the narrative, story-telling side of Cash. So, a minor work? Well, the general quality is upto par, yet there's simply not enough of it here. Well, a lot of these early Cash albums are similarly short, but.... I don't know. It's noticeable more here I guess because there's a lack of well known Cash tunes to make up for it. A '7' it is, but don't be put off getting it, especially if you see it going cheap.

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A sun-records release that doesn't exactly do what it says on the tin. Several of Johnny's own composition are featured and being a Sun release, we've heard most of them before. So, hardly an artistic LP to be held in high regard but it remains that there are good performances here. Only the first four tracks in fact are from the pen of Hank Williams and the entire album including previously released material only just makes it to twenty six minutes in length. For both of these factors, I can't possibly give this a high grade, especially when the opening cut is simply irritating with the barest of arrangments and I don't even like the song in the first place or Johnny's performance of it. In fact, of the four Hank tunes, only one is slightly uptempo and that's the joyous 'Hey Good Looking'. The other three songs and performances I can do entirely without. Johnny's own songs sound more committed, but drawing conclusions is difficult for such a hodge-potch of an album release. Suffice to say that rounding out the first side ( of the vinyl edition ) is Johnny's 'Next In Line' and 'Straight A's In Love'. The latter is a tune I really like at least, the Johnny Cash shuffle applied to humorous lyrics.

Side two then. 'Folsom Prison Blues' and 'I Walk The Line' are of course two classic compositions but can be heard in a better context than this. It's interesting to compare the Cash version of 'I Love Because' to the Elvis version. They sound like different songs to each other. Elvis doing one of his pieces on it, Johnny turning it into a mid-tempo number. I actually far prefer the Elvis version. 'Come In Stranger' and 'Mean Eyed Cat' round out this collection then, two decent tunes especially the rockabilly 'Mean Eyed Cat'.

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A story from when travelling the vast expanse of America could only be done by train. Johnny's early material for Columbia records didn't greatly differ from his now classic Sun material. Yet, the move to columbia gave Johnny the opportunity to record more ambitiously. Indeed, 'Ride This Train' is a concept album a good six or seven years before the term became popular with rock bands. Anyway, this album right here is totally captivating. The songs themselves aren't, I would wager, amongst Mr Cash's best songs, necessarily. Yet, the album is a whole. Each song begins with the sound of a train making a journey 'across this land'. Along the way, we meet various different characters and take in various stories and situations. Ghostly narration leads into each song and it's these narration sections, almost a kind of alternate American history lesson, that ultimately give 'Ride This Train' a little something extra. The sense that this album is coming to you from some other time and universe is present whilst listening. His double set 'Sings Ballads Of The Old West' gives out a similar feeling, but this is perhaps a shorter, more focused and intense set of songs than that particular record. I shall be discussing that elsewhere, in any event. Oh, i don't quite know what to say about 'Ride This Train', I like the narration more than the songs, I love the stories and the echo and the sonic quality. It sounds very real. You know sometimes when you listen to a record, and there's something intangible about it that keeps you coming back? Often for me, that something is the actual sound of the record. 'Ride This Train' sounds like it was recorded in a cave, in a good way. Lots of echo and the songs cover a lot of ground.

A shade over thirty three minutes long, 'Ride This Train' opens with a brilliant segue from the opening narration into the charming and funny 'Loading Coal'. At one point, I do believe, Johnny almost starts rapping. Rap music, hey! Rapping with the sound of a train going past, ever onwards. "But, let's look a little at the heart and muscle of this land, the things you don't learn in school". "Boy, i'll be glad when I get big enough to work in the mines..." and then 'Loading Coal' comes in, very funny dark lyrics, brilliant stuff all round. 'Slow Rider' is a horse, 'Lumberjack' is almost cartoonish - a painting. "You don't cut timber on a windy day". I'll bear that in mind, Johnny! We continue, a ballad, piano honkey tonk for 'Going To Memphis'. 'When Papa Played The Dobro' sounds one hundred years old and the closing two songs are there, 'Old Doc Brown' especially worth listening to for the intonation of the words and for the story. It keeps you listening.

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The concept here is simply Johnny paying tribute to other singers and their songs. Simple as that. For this, he's joined by a proper country band, fiddle and pedal steel are prominent throughout the album. This fleshing out of the bare-bones of the usual Cash sound provides for a pleasing, listenable LP, if less distinctive than other Cash albums. 'Seasons Of My Heart' which opens this collection is also arguably the best performance here. A carefully, well put together backing track with bass, fiddle and pedal steel along with real country-barroom piano. I'm always going to like a song called 'My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You', a real strong country tune. Johnny performs it straight. Actually, that's why i'm not so keen on this LP. He performs everything straight, dutifully performing these country songs with a reverence and losing much of his own character and humour in the process. So yes, Johnny can play with a real country band and perform 'real' country songs, but what's the point in that? His voice is distinctive but it's a lot more distinctive when he's singing his own material, at least, at THIS stage in his career! Peppering an album with the odd cover version is fine and turning it into something of your own, of course, he would make something of a point of doing so on the American series of albums. Here though, it's all played far too straight vocally and musically. As I've said, the music is nice but it's not quite enough to make the LP essential.

'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' is a tear-jerking performance, one of the better ones on the LP. The upbeat 'Honky-Tonk Girl' is fun and we could have done with more uptempo tunes, too much here strays into ballad territory. I'm just realising i've got another 40 or so Johnny Cash albums to review. I'm going to bed.

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'My Treasure' was recorded late 1954 in Sun Studio, Memphis. We have songs four, five, eight and eleven recorded at varying times in 1955 then we skip forwards to 1957 for 'Home Of The Blues' with the remaining six songs coming from 1958. Well, this was one of the last Sun Studios butcher jobs of their Cash recordings but unlike the ramshackle 'Sings Hank Williams' this one actually holds together as a satisfying product. We've songs from the full range of styles Cash presented whilst at Sun records including a few hits along the way. I love the darker sounds Cash created and the descending 'So Doggone Lonesome' always hits that particular spot. 'Oh Lonesome Me' sounds like it has hit written all over it, although the overdubbed backing occasionally threatens to take away from the simplicity of the actual composition. Oh, as an aside, the original LP version of this album was twelve songs lasting twenty seven minutes, talk about that for economy! Songs like 'Hey, Porter!' are just fantastic, you'd have to be a man with a cold heart not to enjoy that little chugging train song. The opening 'Sugar Time' is notable mainly for the sheer amount of echo placed on the Cash vocal, the guitar and even the handclaps echo with the sound of ancient mountaintops. The follow up songs on the LP, 'Down The Streets To 301' and 'Life Goes On' are both welcome additions to the Cash catalogue, high quality enjoyable material.

'Port Of Lonely Hearts' is deeply strange, Cash duetting with himself but the vocals shift away from each other creating an unsettling, uneasy effect. Perhaps this tune could have been left on the cutting room floor? We revisit Cash first hit, 'Cry Cry Cry' when it was all about simplicity, voice and guitar. In just a few short years Cash penned a tremendous amount of classic material at Sun when you come to think about it for any length of time. I dig the barroom honky tonk feel of 'A Story Of A Broken Heart', not a classic, but Cash still gets a lot in with just a simple strum, some humming and some fairly simple rhymes. What else? Well, tis only a short album so a short review will perhaps suffice. Always nice to hear the sweet 'You're The Nearest Thing To Heaven' in any context. Well, funerals excepted, naturally.

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It's often been said that this was the sort of album Johnny Cash went to Columbia records for in the first place, having met huge resistance from Sun Records Sam Phillips to recording and releasing gospel music. His second album of hymns featuring just one Cash original though this time around, 'I Got Shoes' which actually does kind of stick out like a sore thumb among the other eleven sincerely performed religious songs. The vocals of Johnny Cash are well suited to performing this type of material, his deep baritone lending appropriate seriousness and weight to proceedings. The music is well performed but a special word for the backing vocals which really do lend the album a necessary lightness of texture, allowing for an easier listen than if Cash had featured alone. Twelve songs in total then, one original and some twenty eight minutes running time which may seem a little miserly in this day and age but was quite regular and routine back in the day. 'I Got Shoes' is lots of fun, 'bum, de dum dum' goes the bass harmonies, 'i'm gonna play!' go the female harmonies, cymbals are shaken and this is an upbeat two minute slice of entertainment you should enjoy, whether religious or not.

In contrast to the sole Cash original 'I Got Shoes', the likes of 'Taller Than Trees' is slow, mournful, respectful. 'You my son can grow taller than the trees'. Indeed. 'Down at her knees I knelt,' sings Mr Cash. 'When I Take My Vacation In Heaven' is arguably the most memorable of the hymns here, a timeless song performed with care and genuine feeling by Johnny Cash and again, the backing vocals magically shine.

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