Johnny Cash anyone?

[page]

I'm a fan of Johnny Cash. Went to see a coverband, but they weren't really living up to my expectations. Saw a great coverband some years ago at a memorial day. Are there more people still into his music around here I wonder. What's your favourite song, memory maybe? I'd love to know. Share you thoughts!
Kind regards, page

[jlhoots]

Jackson

[ghost of miles]

Love Johnny Cash!  Just picked up the Bear Family box Come Along And Ride This Train not too long ago.  The other night I was listening to his cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" quite a few times... one of my favorite Cash performances (though I love Kristofferson's recording of it as well).

[GA Russell]

Three years ago I got the Complete Sun Masters box.  Those are my favorites of his.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0014VCFWU

[lipi]

"Jackson" from "At Folsom Prison", with June's delightful growls.

"Daddy Sang Bass"

"One Piece at a Time"

I have the Bear Family set, three volumes of the Bootleg series, and some other odds and ends, but "At San Quentin" and "At Folsom Prison" are my favourites.

[JSngry]

Some favorites (there are many):

 

Probably my overall favorite, not the "best", but damn, you can hear him smiling but the snarl seems real...he might as well have been named John Shaft, because he appears to have indeed have been one of the absolute for-real "he's a complicated man and no one understands him but his woman".

Meditate on it.

 

[JSngry]

Favorite memory...it's a tangential one, but I remember when we lived in Shreveport, I had a pediatrician named Dr. Strain. One day I had a strept throat or something and Mom took me in to see Dr. Strain. Apparently Cash had played Shreveport the night before, because all anybody in the waitin room was talking about was Johnny Cash, "Ring Of Fire", and were you there last night, did he do "Ring Of Fire"?

Well, Dr. Strain HAD been there last night and that's all he could talk about before and after looking at my throat and telling me I was gonna get a shot and miss school for a day or two, was Johnny Cash last night and "Ring Of Fire", I mean, Dr. Strain was excited in the unique way that Southern men of the time did when they something had gotten inside them that they could not find a way to control of otherwise subjugate - or deny. And in fairness to Dr. Strain, those are some pretty damn powerful lyrics, and the less one is removed from a literal sense of real falling into real fire and really, truly, burning, like you can smell the flesh in your nostrils burning, the more powerful they surely are...Johnny & June must have been the Southern/Baptist Frank & Nancy or Eddie & Liz, and Dr. Strain was letting it get inside him, for reasons which I can today only imagine, although then, as a kid, I just thought it was because he really liked that record.

[duaneiac]

I became a Johnny Cash fan back when I was a kid.  "A Boy Named Sue" was a big hit on the radio and he had his weekly TV show around that time.  There was a genuineness about him and his music that really appealed to me then and still does.  I guess it's because there was a certain integrity and honesty about his music.  If he sang/recorded a song, it was because he believed in it and wanted to do it, not because it was well received by some focus group or because some record execs told him he should do it.

There are so many great songs he recorded.  One of my favorites was "I Still Miss Someone".  One of the most moving songs is his version of "Danny Boy" on his last CD.  Granted, it's a sad song to begin with, but it's rare that one hears the lines "But if you come and all the flowers are dying / And I am dead, as dead I well may be" sung by some one who actually knew he was dying at the time.  It's incredibly moving and I can never listen to it without shedding a tear or two.

[Milestones]

You can't make claim to know American music without bringing in Johnny Cash...in a big way.

Some jewels from his late career:

"Spiritual" and "Rusty Cage" from Unchained. 

"God's Gonna Cut You Down" from American V.

[ghost of miles]

When Dylan met Cash:  One Too Many Mornings

[randyhersom]

An important song to me growing up was What is Truth, emotional support as I was developing independent thinking through adolescent rebellion.

Older guy sings:

Old Man, could it be that the girls and boys

are trying to be heard above your noise?

And the lonely voice of youth

cries out What is Truth

 

Hell Yeah!

 

[JSngry]

 

[MomsMobley]

On February 14, 2016 at 8:09 PM, ghost of miles said:

Love Johnny Cash!  Just picked up the Bear Family box Come Along And Ride This Train not too long ago.  The other night I was listening to his cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" quite a few times... one of my favorite Cash performances (though I love Kristofferson's recording of it as well).

 

[Big Beat Steve]

On 14.2.2016 at 5:02 AM, lipi said:

"Daddy Sang Bass"

"One Piece at a Time"

 

Ouch ...

I must admit I cannot consciously recall having heard Johnny Cash sing "Daddy Sang Bass" but there is a truly ATROCIOUS version (IMHO) of that song by Carl Perkins (from his 60s CBS days) out there that made me shudder when I had to listen through it on an LP from that period that I once owned so any possible enjoyment of that song as such will be marred forever to me ...

OTOH, "One Piece At A Time" is hilarious! It was a good laugh among the small circle of us "traditional" country fans here when it was released at the time and still is very enjoyable today. I understand someone actually built a car following the lyrics of that song ...

As for other favorites, many of his Sun items, of course, starting with "Luther's Boogie" ("Luther Played The Boogie").

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2016 by Big Beat Steve

[Late]

I'd been wanting to put together a twenty song comp of early Cash favorites recently, so I put this playlist together:

1. Cry, Cry, Cry
2. I Walk The Line
3. Get Rhythm
4. There You Go
5. What Do I Care?
6. Big River
7. Guess Things Happen That Way
8. All Over Again
9. Run Softly, Blue River
10. That's All Over
11. That's Enough
12. Tennessee Flat-Top Box
13. I Still Miss Someone
14. Ring of Fire
15. The Ballad of Ira Hayes
16. Orange Blossom Special
17. It Ain't Me Babe
18. Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)
19. Sunday Morning Comedown
20. Flesh and Blood


Then I needed a twenty song contemporaneous (well, a handful of years later) Willie Nelson playlist, but that's another thread. 

[JSngry]

Maybe a couple more?

 

 

[johnblitweiler]

who else of his generation had hit records of so many good songs? (and anyone who sings Shel Silverstein songs is ok with me)

[MomsMobley]

2 hours ago, johnblitweiler said:

who else of his generation had hit records of so many good songs? (and anyone who sings Shel Silverstein songs is ok with me)

 

[Neal Pomea]

Give my love to Rose

[duaneiac]

16 hours ago, johnblitweiler said:

who else of his generation had hit records of so many good songs? (and anyone who sings Shel Silverstein songs is ok with me)

"Of his generation" I would say first and foremost was Ray Charles, who had a slew of hit records from good songs.  Both men were Southerners, both were born into and grew up in economically deprived circumstances during the Great Depression and both became iconic figures in American music. 

 

 

[Dmitry]

16 hours ago, johnblitweiler said:

who else of his generation had hit records of so many good songs? (and anyone who sings Shel Silverstein songs is ok with me)

Elvis?

[duaneiac]

22 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

Elvis?

I suppose it would depend upon how one personally defines what is a "good song".  I like Elvis a lot but, IMO, many of his hits were good/great records made out of mediocre songs -- "Blue Suede Shoes", "Teddy Bear", "Stuck On You", "Return To Sender", etc.  Granted, it is no small feat to make a hit record from mediocre source material; everything depends upon the performance, arrangement and production to push the material over the top into classic status.  So I am not trying to diminish the status of these songs done by Elvis.  I like the songs I mentioned even though I can recognize that they are not gems of the art of songwriting, but boy were they made into good, catchy records by Elvis & Co.

[page]

Thanks for all the songs and stories guys. I'm enjoying all!

The thing I like so much about the music of Johnny Cash is the story in his song. I didn't grow up with his music, since I only heard classical music when i was young and it wasn't until my teens that I began to learn about pop music etc since I got a radio and listened to music on the radio. Not much Johnny Cash on the Dutch radio those days, at least so far as I know. I've always had a thing for the type of music, like country style, but overall the story in a song whatever genre it was in. That got me interested. I was the type of girl that wrote down the lyrics from ear to learn what a song was about. I still remember songlyrics from that time, f.e. I've written down most of the songs Of Simon and Garfunkel since my brother gave me a tape with their music and I love it so much. Same for Neil Diamond and Leonard Cohen. No Johnny Cash among my brother's interest at that time to my regret. I could have learned of his music sooner.

I saw a lovely and impressing doc about Glen Campbell. I didn't  know him although I knew some of his songs. I can imagine he has been as popular with you guys as Johnny Cash.

Thanks again, especially for the personal memories, f.e. those of Jim and Duane. Really lovely!

[JSngry]

 

[page]

Yeah, that is what I mean. It is just that it is about life, about life itself you know. For me that is what music is about. It makes me cry, really, to feel the expression even when it is not my own emotion but it is just the way they are telling the story. If that makes any sense..