It is a little less unseemly in this instance because the making of A Hundred Highways is not significantly different than the four previous installments of the American collaboration between Cash and producer Rick Rubin. The songs were built around Cash's voice and an acoustic guitar. Rubin often fine tuned the songs and recorded additional instrumental passages after Cash had given his finished vocal. Sometimes, after he listened to the completed track, he would re-sing a part or offer a suggestion. This final step is the only part of their process that did not happen during the recording of Highways.
There is more than one ghost haunting this album. Cash's wife, June Carter Cash, passed away months before he did. It was during those months many of these songs were recorded. It was because of her passing he immersed himself in work, singing every day he felt physically capable. Cash sang of love won and lost thousands of times in his 46-year career and many times did it in better voice. He never came closer to sounding broken, heartbroken, than he does in these songs. Listen to opening track "Help Me" and try to keep your throat from closing just a little. The song itself is a man asking God for help but lines like "I'm tired of walking all alone" cut just a little deeper.
A devout Christian man, he finds a spiritual theme in Bruce Springsteen's "Further On Up the Road." The song is taken from his The Rising album, an album largely inspired and informed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That Cash could still take a song originally recorded as a hard-driving rocker, strip it bare, and find that spiritual quality in the lyrics demonstrates what an amazing gift he had as an interpreter and storyteller. It also reveals what many Springsteen fans have always known - his songs are dense, layered, and open to innumerable interpretations.
Cash proves that what is left can be nearly as revealing as the whole. Hearing him sing these songs in the weeks prior to his passing, age having robbed him of much of his vocal power, tells an incredible story. He does not need to say a word. We understand as soon as we hear him sing the first note. Any number of aging artists could give us that much but everyone knows "TheVoice." We have all heard the mythic "Man in Black." Hearing what is left of that voice and knowing what it was communicates more powerfully than the words of any poet or lyricist. He could have easily stopped recording when his health and voice began to fail him and no one would have blamed him. Instead, he left us one more gift. Listen to "Cry, Cry, Cry" and "Like the 309." "Like the 309" is, according to Rubin, the last song Cash ever wrote and likely one of the last he ever recorded. The distance from life to death is more tangible. There is now a measure of just how much is lost.
Article comments
1 - Duke De Mondo
a perfect review, Sir DJ, nothing less and a damn sight more.
I love this record, think it may, in fact, be the most consistent of all the American Recordings numbers, all of which i love dearly. It's heartbreaking and yet more than that, on account of the songs being wonderful and that voice still having being fit to part the oceans should Johnny have so desired. A beautiful thing, and one to be played often and with much hurrah. Becuase music that good, it should be celebrated.
Again, fantastic screed, and thank you for the wee nod up yonder by way of a lovely link!
2 - Mark Saleski
Cash was an amazing man and really will be missed.
there aren't a whole lot of artists who were so prolific and good in their final few years.
3 - DJRadiohead
Thanks, fellas.
I have four of the five American albums and also have the box set. I need to get that copy of Solitary Man this week. Yes. Definitely will do that. It is a consistent, elegant release. The song selection and arrangements are first rate.
4 - Duke De Mondo
DJ - Solitary Man is my favourite of the five, definately. you'll have heard his version of The Mercy Seat from the last disc in the box-set, and the majority of the record is up to that standard, or damn near it. i still think the cover of One was a bit of a mis-step, mind, but the world seems to think otherwise.
5 - Mat Brewster
Beautiful review, lovely really. Will have to go out and get this record soon. It truly is amazing the stuff Cash put out not long before his death. Gut wrenching, haunting, magnificent stuff. Of course that could be said about much of his work.
6 - Glen Boyd
Very powerful review DJR. I haven't heard it yet but your words have definitely whet my appetite.
If he comes even close to capturing the loneliness and desolate feelings a man looking his own mortality square in the face must feel, in even near the same way he did on "Hurt," this album will easily end up on my Ten Best list this year.
I'm very anxious to see what he does with "Further On Up The Road" too. In my head, I already sort of hear the refrain of "I'll Meet You Further On..." song in that haunting, aged, weary voice.
The boxed set has been a favorite of mine for awhile and I was actually fortunate to be a part of American's marketing team for "American I" during the early going. I remember we all knew that it was going to be something very special.
Looking very forward to this. Thanks for the preview.
-Glen
P.S. Since Now is as good a time as any to say this, I apologize for the swipe at you and Saleski a week or so back. Bad attempt at humor on my part...but honestly, thats all it was intended to be.
7 - El Bicho
"Johnny Cash's willingness to immortalize his frailty and mortality was one more act of defiance from a man personified the act."
Agreed. He was able to take the emotion from "Hurt" and make it an entire album without diluting the power or emotion.
8 - DJRadiohead
Fellas, thanks for checking this out. I am really glad to see this album has struck such a chord with so many both here in the comments as well as in the form of so many reviews being written for the site. I plan to get over and read them all.
Sir Brewster, you might not enjoy any pudding with this album but it is a wonderful record and worth having.
Glen, no apologies necessary at all. I am glad you enjoyed the review. I think you will really love this album.
Duke, I am with you on the U2 cover. Cash is great and the version wasn't terrible but I don't think it was a good fit. "The Wanderer," on the other hand, is gold.
ElB, thanks for scoping out my review. I'll be doing the same with yours today.
9 - Connie Phillips
A very thoughtful review of a legend. Thanks for a great read!
10 - Glen Boyd
My GOD!...this is amazing. The version of "Further On Up The Road" alone turns what was in my mind a fairly minor Springsteen track into something absoluterly poetic. "God's Gonna Cut You Down"...incredible. Easily the best disc I have heard this year, "American V" will be hard to top for bext this year. Period.
Review forthcoming once I've had more time to digest, but right now I rank it near or at the very top of the entire American series.
I mean, WOW!
-Glen
11 - Mary K. Williams
Better late than never here. I finally read this Josh - and man you did great. I never followed his music really, a shame, because now I've been hearing some great tracks.
When WWE's Eddie Guerro died last fall, the TV tribute used the Cash version of "Hurt" during a montage of Eddie clips. Very powerful.
12 - DJRadiohead
1000 thank yous Sir Mary and Connie. I was never a huge Cash fan as a kid. My grandfather had a couple of his albums on vinyl and I remember listening to them at his farmhouse. The "Hurt" single really re-awakened me to him and caused me to investigate his career a little. For me, a non-country fan, I like his early material recorded for Sun Records and his later stuff with American Recordings (this album being among them). The stuff in between, what I refer to as the Nashville era, is a little more hit and miss with me because I just can't get into the whole country thing really at all.
Glen, I will look forward to reading your thoughts (I'll get you included on the master post we just put together for all of our BC reviews of this album). I don't see how this one won't make my end of year list, either.
13 - Glen Boyd
My review is up now DJR. I'd be most interested in your thoughts.
Thanx!
-Glen
14 - Larry Garrett
Superb review. You nailed the essence of just who Johnny Cash was/is: a human being. I've followed him since I was 8-9 years old. For years it was the music, but as I matured I began to see so much more. Fortunately for all of us, he was far beyond being a mere superstar with all of the celebrity trappings. He was Johnny Cash. A real human being.
Thanks for the review. You won't dance to this album, but after listening to it you will be profoundly moved, perhaps even changed. If this album doesn't choke you up, you are likely already dead.
15 - Glen Boyd
Here, here.
-Glen