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Extra! Extra! Johnny Cash Channels Leadbelly!

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Wednesday, 23 November 2011 11:56
Written by Rich Kienzle

One aspect of Johnny Cash's appeal I touched on in my recent look at the Bootleg III: Live Around the World release was his appearance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival.  Cash's roots in folk music were deep; only his country roots were deeper.  Once he signed with Columbia Records in 1958, he continued exploring folk tunes as he quickly became one of their top country stars. That built on the fame he'd established on Sun Records from 1955 on. Cash developed such a strong folk following that Columbia would advertise his releases in the most popular folk magazine of the time: Sing Out!  

 

He'd recorded folk songs at Sun, including "Rock Island Line," made popular when former Southern prisoner Huddie Ledbetter, aka "Leadbelly" or (depending on your preference) "Lead Belly," first recorded it. It wasn't the last time he recorded a Leadbelly song.  In 1958 he recorded "Goodnight Irene," a Leadbelly number that became an early 50's hit for the Weavers, though Ledbetter almost certainly picked it up from someone else and adapted it to his own purposes.

Here's a less well-known example of Cash reworking-adapting from Leadbelly.  It's from 1943, with harmonica by longtime Brownie McGhee partner Sonny Terry.  The song is "On A Monday," another prison number.

This is Cash in on TV in 1959 performing the same song, which he's reworked into "I Got Stripes," with the Tennessee Two on the famous LA (Compton, actually) country and rockabilly TV show Town Hall Party.  Sure, his vocal's a bit off-key in places and he's changed the lyrics around, but it's clearly the same song. A former prisoner, Leadbelly had tons of these songs rolling around his head.  It's on Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison as well.

Cash's folk roots were significant, and explain a good bit of why he was able to grab a wide audience even in the days before the Folsom album or the very diverse Rick Rubin recordings.

 

 

 

 

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written by LarryZ, November 23, 2011 - 12:40 PM
*t's still hard to believe that Johnny's booming voice is no longer with us. Rick Rubin did him no justice - there was really no point to it. An old, sometimes feeble Cash making music? Maybe his first release w/Rubin album wasn't bad. Cash did become larger than life in his later years. Almost like this mythical figure.
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written by Rich Kienzle, November 23, 2011 - 02:34 PM

This is EXACTLY how I see it, Larry. It's why I was so rough on "American 6," which I felt was contrived by Rubin to overstate the idea of "THIS IS CASH'S LAST ALBUM!" when in fact it was just a collection of songs.

He didn't need the Avett Brothers and their chains on "Ain't No Grave." The first 2-3 American records were quite good but Cash was in a healthier state. I saw him in Greensburg when he played there in November of 1993 and he smoked.

So far as who wanted him to make music in the last years, however, that was Cash himself. He even made records after June died as a way of just holding on through his grief. He was fading. The courage is what stood out.

Cash became larger than life in 1968-9 after the Folsom album, but public interest waned somewhat in the 70's because he was on TV all the time, and he ended up a bit overexposed. A lot of the very young people not born or just infants in 1968-72 tend to not realize that in his healthier days post-Folsom, he was one of the biggest names ever. Of course back then everyone thought he'd actually been to prison. One of the few (DAMN few) redeeming qualities to the movie Walk The Line was to make the point he had not been in a prison (just in jail for a ocuple nights. It was Merle Haggard who saw him at his earlier, 1960 show at San Quentin--from the audience.
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written by csf, November 28, 2011 - 01:19 PM
I agree about the last few Cash recordings, however, I was just fine with the 1st 2 Rubin productions .. or should I term them as unproductions (especiall the 1st.) He just let Johnny sing some of John's favorite ballads with very little accompaniment ..and it will sund as fresh in 2053 as it did in 1993.

Meanwhile, Rich, see attached .. looks like an event you would have enjoyed http://www.npr.org/2011/10/13/...ion-awards
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written by Rich Kienzle, December 02, 2011 - 07:01 AM

I agree. My high regard went up through Unchained, but after that I started to see Rubin starting to shape Cash according to his own agenda. I don't think he necessarily meant anything by it, but as Cash's health faltered this sort of lion-in-winter tone came into things and it got more pretentious over time. If you didn't hear my review of the final set, American VI: Ain't No Grave on the podcast, I had a good bit of skepticism about the whole thing (even if I did lamely mispronounce the Avett Brothers' name).

http://media.post-gazette.com/...17bye.mp3


Ditto this more recent critique of the Jeff Bridges album.


http://media.post-gazette.com/...24bye.mp3


Thanks for the Americana link. My views on that genre are... evolving. Some of my comments on the above podcasts reflect that. I don't think Americana is as good as it was in the late 1990s. I'll discuss it sometime in a more indepth posting, but let's just say it's getting to be a homegrown proposition, where anyone with a guitar, a bunch of original songs and a recording setup can put something together. Wonderful on one level, but that doesn't necessarily mean talent.

I'm glad the field has true giants like Lauderdale, Buddy and Julie Miller, Mary Gauthier, Eric Brace and Peter Cooper, the Drive-By Truckers, Southern Culture on the Skids, and so on. But a lot of the lesser lights have unrealistic hopes and talent that with a few exceptions simply can't take them where they want to be. As I said, it's a subject worth delving into.

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