Most days, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" rates as my favorite Johnny Cash song. This may be the most eloquent song about a hangover ever. That Kris Kristofferson sure could write. The pure beauty of the strings and horns illustrating the happy family scenes that he's not part of only make his alienation hurt worse.
My top pick of anything new to me from this collection was another hangover song, though of a much more comic variety. The 1987 recording of Elvis Costello's modern classic "The Big Light" was just the thing for Johnny. It was more or less a rockabilly song when Elvis published it the year before on King of America, so it was quite simple to translate into his classic clip-clopping Sun sound. For someone who perhaps trended a bit too much to the somber sometimes, this self-lacerating country wit was just right. Being Johnny Cash, he could get a kind of effect from this that Elvis would never be able to touch. Again, them Carter women chirping cheerfully about "in-spi-ra-tion" really delights.
This collection co-incidentally underscores the contributions of Carter women to his work. Not just June, but the Carter female vocal harmonies really help make his work come alive.
The four CDs are labeled as "Win, Place and Show - The Hits" "Old Favorites and New" "The Great American Songbook" and finally "Family and Friends." In practice, these don't seem like particularly useful or illuminating categorizations. There is no major distinction between the sounds of the "favorites" versus the "Great American Songbook" or the "hits."
Plus, one can also get a bit overawed by the legend. You get to thinking that he was the definitive voice for any song he ever sang. Plus, I think he used to walk on water and stuff like that.
In truth though, some of Great American songbook stuff isn't particularly essential. He performs everything competently, but there's nothing especially revealing or deeply moving about him singing "Sweet Betsy from Pike" or "I've Been Working on the Railroad."
So a few of the 104 songs are useful in reminding us that JR Cash was only human. All of the recordings are perfectly presentable, but not all particularly inspired. It surprises me how average his 1964 recording here of "The Long Black Veil" came out. It seems like a custom made man-in-black kind of song, but this ain't the tenth part as good as the definitive version from The Band.
Article comments