Cool Cash Songs Of Sin And Redemption Find A New Yound Audience
“Delia, oh, Delia, Delia, all my life
If I hadn’t have shot poor Delia
I’d have had her for my wife.
First time I shot her I shot her in the side
Hard to watch her suffer
But with the second shot she died.”
- “Delia’s Gone,” from “American Recordings” by Johnny Cash i
It is a brutal tale, but Johnny Cash tells it at an easy pace, with a voice deep, dark and gentle, without apology or regret. It sets the tone for his latest release, “American Recordings,” while holding up a mirror to Cash’s own tumultuous life.
He sings of an indifferent world, of large forces and petty human miseries, where there is nothing to be gained by pleading for forgiveness or wailing about fate.
He sings of sin and redemption, though every turn suggests there is no romance in falling and, most often, little help while trying to get up. Just do what you must and move on.
“These songs, they really reflect my life along those lines,” Cash said recently from Las Vegas. “It’s been said there’s a good dog and bad dog inside us, constantly fighting. Everything is a struggle, even keeping faith. Everybody’s got their dark side, and our light is trying to shine through the darkness. Redemption is the beautiful side of it all, feeling that regardless of what I’ve done there is redemption for me …
“But life is life, and it doesn’t always work out with a rainbow at the end. Hopefully, everybody can experience spiritual redemption, but as far as the world is concerned, there is hardly ever redemption. Hardly ever.”
Cash has had an extraordinary career shaped by a mythical image and a common touch, good ol’ boy carousing and profound religious experiences, noble causes and bouts with drug addiction. He has blurred musical boundaries - country music, rhythm and blues, rockabilly, gospel music - while remaining true to himself. With resolve and dignity, he has brought attention to the disenfranchised, from Native Americans (“The Ballad of Ira Hayes”) to Vietnam veterans (“Singin’ in Viet Nam Talkin’ Blues”), from prison inmates to migrant workers and miners.
For nearly 40 years, his has been a career of wild success and hopeless obscurity. Now Cash, who will be 63 next Sunday, is hot again. “American Recordings” has been nominated for a Grammy in the Contemporary Folk category. Rolling Stone magazine named him its top country and comeback artist of the year. And the Doc-Martens crowd is embracing him.
He seems amused by it all.
“Yes, there seems to be a new generation that is curious about me, and I have fun with it because I can do what they expect from me,” Cash says matter of factly.
He sounds less at ease with the larger-than-life character he has become. Cash’s honesty, stoicism and quiet strength might resonate loudly in a pop culture that celebrates losers. But being The Man in Black is one thing; John Wayne with an acoustic guitar is quite something else.
“I have a little trouble with that because it appears that the reaction of some people is like they are discovering a myth,” he rumbles. “And I am so much flesh and blood, so human.”
From the start, Cash had a distinct, stark sound, one born of necessity more than a thought-out strategy. He turned his limitations - minimal vocal range, elemental guitar style - into strengths.
He became part of the history of rock ‘n’ roll, playing alongside such giants as Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. But it was the classic country singers - Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow - he admired. Even today, his favorites include George Jones, Jimmie Rodgers and the fabled Carter family. (Cash has been married to June Carter since 1968.)
Cash’s addiction to amphetamines led to well-documented tales of excess and destruction - and landed him in jail in 1965 after he was caught bringing drugs across the Mexican border. Despite his outlaw mystique and association with prisons, that is the only time Cash has spent in jail.
Still, he has said, “I was wild back then. I was dangerous. To myself.”
And to his marriage, which disintegrated in 1966.
Two years later, Cash married Carter, and things began to turn around. He kicked his habit (although temporarily; it wasn’t until 1984 that he finally overcame his addiction). And he began a comeback with the powerful “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison” (1968), followed by “Nashville Skyline” (his ‘69 collaboration with Bob Dylan) and “Johnny Cash at San Quentin” (1969).
From 1969 to ‘71, he had his own television program and appeared in films (most notably, 1971’s “A Gunfight” with Kirk Douglas). In 1975, he wrote a best-selling autobiography (“Man in Black”).
He has recorded more than 100 albums, had some 135 hits on Billboard’s country charts and 48 on the pop charts, sold more than 50 million records, won seven Grammys and been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 1990s, Cash’s best years seemed behind him. Then came Rick Rubin, owner of the American Recordings label, who had an inspired notion: Sit Cash alone with his guitar in front of a microphone and let him sing.
“American Recordings” is one of the most haunting albums of the year. Cash’s elemental guitar-playing only heightens the power of his unadorned singing. He has been believable even when performing novelty tunes in improbable settings: Remember “A Boy Named Sue,” the No. 1 hit recorded at San Quentin prison? Here, performing material of his choice - from the traditional, 19th century cowboy song “Oh Bury Me Not” to tunes by heavy-metal rocker Glenn Danzig, Nick Lowe and Tom Waits - he is often devastating.