Friday, September 12, 2003

I’m Gonna Sit On My Porch And Pick On My Old Guitar

Johnny Cash. Is there anyone who doesn’t like Johnny Cash? I’ve not encountered one. He is one of the very few people that there seems to be universal agreement on--he was The Man.

When I tell people I like country music they usually say something like “I don’t like country, but I like Johnny Cash.” Along with Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, his CDs are the most likely country titles you’ll find in most rock-heavy collections. Part of this is the instrumentation--no steel guitars or fiddles that so many find corny or grating (personally I love ‘em). Part of this is cool cache--Johnny adds instant hipness to your collection in a way that another REM or U2 record just can’t. But I think the biggest reason is simply that the songs stand up so well after all these years.

Let’s take a look at his career and his songs to get some understanding what made this man so great (props to the All Music Guide To Country, which I used for reference).

Johnny got his start at the legendary Sun Records in Memphis. Legend has it that he approached Sun founder Sam Phillips in 1955 as a gospel singer but was turned away. Phillips wanted something more commercial, so Johnny came back with Hey Porter and he was off.

The Sun records were marked by a distinctive, sparse, chukka-chukka sound comprising of Johnny on acoustic, Luther Perkins on electric and Marshall Grant on bass. No drums were needed to propel a groove that strong.

JR was writing most of his own material during this period and the songs were topnotch: Cry, Cry, Cry, Folsum Prison Blues, I Walk The Line, Big River (including the memorable line “I met her accidentally in St. Paul Minnesota”). His first number one came from this list, I Walk The Line in ‘56.

He also recorded the biggest hit of his career during this era, Ballad Of A Teenage Queen, a Jack Clement composition that was number one for ten weeks in the winter of 1958.

Also in ‘58 Johnny left Sun for Columbia where he remained for almost 30 years. During the early to mid-sixties Johnny had another strong crop of hit songs: Ring Of Fire, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, Orange Blossom Special, Jackson (with June Carter) and the stinging Understand Your Man, a number one in ‘64 (and a melody and general idea that Dylan borrowed for Don’t Think Twice...”):

Don’t call my name out your window, I’m leavin’ --
I won’t even turn my head.
Don’t sent your kinfolk to give me no talkin’ --
I’ll be gone, like I said.

You’d just say the same old things
That you be sayin’ all along,
Just lay there in your bed and keep your mouth shut,
Till I’m gone.
Don’t give me that old familiar cry and fuss and moan --

Understand your man.


Can you imagine someone having a number one hit with a song like that now?

Unfortunately, also during this time JR developed a nasty amphetamine habit, got divorced, was arrested for starting a wild fire, arrested for smuggling speed and kicked off the Grand Ole Opry for kicking out their footlights after they wouldn’t let him perform.

Enter June Carter, member of country music originators the Carter Family and former wife of honky tonker Carl Smith. She was able to get Johnny off drugs and converted him to Christianity. They were married in 1968. He also released one of his most popular records during that year, Live At Folsum Prison, and had a rash of number one songs over the next two years: Folsum Prison Blues (Live), Daddy Sang Bass, A Boy Named Sue, Sunday Morning Coming Down and Flesh And Blood.

Johnny’s popularity probably reached it’s apex during this era. He had his own TV show, he played for Nixon, acted in movies and was active in politics and religious issues.

Once you’ve reached that level of success in music, it’s hard to sustain it and Johnny’s hits got fewer and fewer during the rest of the decade. Standouts include Oney (‘72), the story of a browbeaten blue collar worker who kicks his bosses ass the day he retires, and One Piece At A Time (‘76), a hilarious tale of an auto worker who builds his own car by sneaking out parts in his lunch box over a period of years.

In 1980, Cash was the youngest inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame, but he did not have many hits during the decade. In ‘85 he formed the Highwaymen with Kris Kristofferson (writer of Sunday Morning Coming Down), Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. They recorded two moderately successful records.

in 1993 Johnny’s career got an unexpected boost when rap and rock producer Rick Rubin produced his American Recordings album, a critical success but not commercially. The record really turned a whole new generation of rock hipsters on to JR. The amazing thing is that his popularity, while still no where near the peak he enjoyed in 1970 was still amazingly high. He has recorded a few more of the sparse, acoustic records over the past ten years or so, but they aint my style. And Johnny doing Nine Inch Nails was simply too much for this country fan and watching him in the Hurt video was, well, painful. I guess I don’t want him remembered that way.

I’d rather remember him as the Man In Black, on stage, holding his guitar sideways, and growling out a tune in that unmistakable baritone. To say he was influential is perhaps the understatement of the year. An amazing writer, singer, star and man. God Bless Johnny Cash.

A few Cash stats from Joel Whitburn’s Top Country Singles.
He had:
--135 hits
--104 Top 40 hits
-- 52 Top Ten hits
-- 69 weeks at the #1 position
-- 52 crossover hits

Johnny Cash’s Top Hits (in order)
1. Ballad Of A Teenage Queen
2. Guess Things Happen That Way
3. Ring Of Fire
4. Walk The Line
5. Understand Your Man

The Doubtless Top Ten JRC Songs in no order:
1. Big River
2. Guess Things Happen That Way
3. I Still Miss Someone
4. Jackson
5. The Ballad of Ira Hayes
6. Flesh And Blood
7. One Piece At A Time
8. Understand Your Man
9. Sunday Morning Coming Down
10. I’m Going To Sit On The Porch And Pick On My Old Guitar


Recommended Listening:
The essential collection. 3 CDs spanning 1955-1983. 75 songs. All killer no filler.

Dressed In Black, a tremendous tribute album. Featuring songs by Robbie Fulks, Rodney Crowell, Dale Watson, Chuck Mead and a stunningly beautiful version of I Guess Things Happen That Way by Raul Malo.

RIP

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