Great Music, Great Friends

  The other night, I received a rather serendipitous email from a close friend of Jim's. It tells the story behind a Gold Coast Bluenote post that dates back to 2005. I thought it would nice to share the story as a post on it's own, complete with links to the original post, as well as to the music of Alison Krauss, who's beautiful voice inspired it.

It's funny how our lives weave together disparate elements, and make them inseparable. I was listening to some tunes last night. The music got me thinking about Jim, and GCB, and that in turn made me think of you.

Here's the back story behind an old post on GCB:(http://goldcoastbluenote.blogspot.com/2006/12/all-my-answers-turned-out-to-be.html). Alison Krauss and Union Station were scheduled to play Lakeland in Dec 2005. I wanted Jim to go see them, and to cover the concert for GCB.

Why? Union Station is the tightest band I have ever seen. Every member is a master musician. Some bands sound great on an album, but just so-so live. Union Station delivers the goods live, every time. Alison Krauss was then (is still) one of the best singers in the world. And she also has the instrumental chops to play with Union Station. Jim had never seen them; I wanted to fix that.

I knew Jim was a bit tight on funds, so I bought him a ticket. As we exchanged emails, it dawned on me that he had no way to get from Tampa to Lakeland and back. In for a dime, in for a dollar. I bought another concert ticket, and a plane ticket, and arranged to fly in from NC so that Jim and I could see the show together. One of the best nights of my life, by the way.

As Jim put it

First timers think they are just going to a concert; but after they listen to these musician’s musicians, they leave the show, just having found that Yahweh cuts us sinners a break now and again.

Digging around on youtube I found a great concert recording of AK/US. It's about three years before the show we went to, but has a quite a bit of overlap with the show we attended. I saw this 2002 tour in Durham NC, and it made me a fan for life. Sometime when you have an hour or so, read Jim's post, open a cold one, and give this a spin: http://youtu.be/HKgTra0QldE

Just one thing though. The concert Jim and I went to had a different encore, as mentioned on GCB. It gave me chills. Here it is, as performed on the Leno Show:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5gmVzbjxwl4.

later bro,
drc

Shining a Light on Your Silver and Your Gold

During 1968, and concentratedly in 1969, the Stones -- while moving Brian Jones out and Mick Taylor in -- while adding a taste of Gram Parsons' influence on Keith -- laid down the tracks for the album Let it Bleed (1969).
Once this album was presumptively completed, (i.e. "was in the can"), with Jagger on vocals for "You've Got the Silver" (and Keith on acoustic slide), Jagger left for an acting gig in the film Ned Kelly, to be shot in Australia. A problem arose with this track and Keith was forced to overdub the vocals for "You Got the Silver", the album track. (Note: the original Jagger on vocals versions -- I've heard it on a bootleg, is also quite good.)

Flash forward to 2006: Martin Scorsese filming the Stones in Shine a Light. Keith at a microphone and no guitar in his hands ("Wadda I do wid my hands?") and Ronnie on acoustic slide, and a twist of fate puts Mick in the locker, Keith and Ronnie out front and, well check out this new take on a classic:

Rolling Stones - You Got The Silver (live in NYC, 2006)
*****

*****

Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt: "For A Dancer" (Turn it Up!))

The definitive cover of the most important song Jackson Browne ever. The "Western Wall" studio sessions cut is cleaner, but this live version has something a studio cut can never ever have again: these two angelic voices untouched and doing their sacred magic -- and Buddy Miller runnin' the band just to make sure everything behind these vocalists is letter perfect.

Roy Orbison Collection: "Anything You Need, You Got It"

I've found another exception to my general rule against greatest hits collections. Again, it's a career-long retrospective made possible in the CD era. The Essential Roy Orbison is a solid, diverse sampling of the singer/songwriter's staggering career from the 50's to his passing in 1988. This essential set covers everything from his early doo-wop / rockabilly days to his going out on top with The Traveling Wilburys.

As with Patsy Cline, Orbison's majestic voice remains unsurpassed to this day.

I have a friend, turning 60 this year, who remembers skating with his girls to Roy Orbison over the loadspeakers at the rink between 1963 and 1965. What glorious, heady days those must have been -- to be young, in love, and have Roy Orbison's music new to your young ears.

Roy Orbison will always live on in our hearts, an essential part of our collective musical memory.

Lowell George Demonstrates and Discusses Slide Guitar

In the following YouTube video, Lowell George -- one of the deceased masters of the slide guitar -- gives us a primer:



Thanks to the Florida Cracker for turning me on to this wonderful clip. Enjoy.

Hot Burrito Number One -- Gram Parsons

Gram Parsons' Cosmic American Music is one of the genre labels here at the Gold Coast Bluenote. This musical blending of the highest quality Country & Western, folk, soul -- his Aretha covers are breathtaking -- and '68-to-'71 era progressive rock generated a metamorphosis spawning two of today's most important popular genres: Alternative Country and Country Rock. Are you down with that? Gram is the visionary that planted the seeds of the socially aware music that stand both beside and also with the work of Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson.

Gram Parsons died of an overdose in 1973 at the age of 26. But never forget that Emmylou Harris wrote her first important song to tell Gram, now in a "Better Place", that the hardest part of her life -- going forward -- would be 'knowing she'd survive'.

Emmylou, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Dylan, James Taylor, Tom Rush, Keith Richards, John Fogerty, Steve Earle, and a host of others did survive to tend the garden Parsons staked out. Even Frank Black (post coming here soon) -- the man who made punk sound like elevator Muzak -- has now turned to making Cosmic American Music. John Phillips and Ronnie VanZant, to mention just two, are now six feet under.

Gram and company, we will never forget you.

****************************************

For commentary on and music from Gram, see these YouTube links:

EmmyLou Harris on Gram Parsons

Flying Burrito Brothers -- Juanita

Flying Burrito Brothers -- Chistine's Tune

Also, a must-see film is Grand Theft Parsons (thanks, LR).

****************************************

"Desire is the Root of All Suffering"

For 18 of the 28 years of her recording career, people who know me well keep sayin', "You gotta check out Lucinda Williams, she's just your style." Well, I been waiting those 18 long years for somebody to follow-up and burn me a copy of one of her records, preferably Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

No dice -- talk is cheap.

But over the last few weeks I've heard "Are You Alright" and "Righteously", both studio cuts by Ms. Williams; then a few days ago I heard her do "Change the Locks" from Live at the Fillmore and I just lost it; I spent my cigarette money for the week on a used copy of this double CD at Amazon. I've been watchin' the mail box ever since.

(Sunday afternoon) Waiting, waiting, waiting .... smokin' a bummed cigarette on the porch in the rain. I guess Mr. Postman ain't comin' today; but I'm sittin' on the stoop feelin' alright, knowin' my new Lucinda gonna be quite outta sight. (More on the album when I've given it a spin or two.)

Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt: "For A Dancer" (Post I)

(Simul-post)
On Jackson Browne's break-out album Late for the Sky, he wrote a song that makes me cry every time I listen to Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris sing it on Western Wall / The Tucson Sessions.

It's the story of my life:

For A Dancer

Late For The Sky (1974)

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must've thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they eased you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on Dancing)
No matter what Fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
Just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
That you'll never know

".... And that’s not the moonshine talkin', either."

The Povertyneck Hillibillies, Self-titled (2007)

"We Achieved Lift Off."

(Simul-post)

Thanks to Benson Williams for inspiring this post.

* * * * *

My job here is to get you to go to the library and check out this DVD. Let's see if I can close the deal.

Metaphorically and atmospherically, Festival Express is the perfect middle movement to a Woodstock opening and an Altamont end to the era of the rock festival.

You will find a narrative description of the train ride and gigs at Wikipedia's entry.

Bob Weir, discussing the train ride years later, described the party the night after the artists had drank the train dry, and the promoters demanded an unscheduled stop outside a Saskatoon liquor store. The train restocked, remembering that for most of these cats drinking was something quite new, with Janis and The Band as notable exceptions. Well, the giant display bottle of Canadian Club was doctored with acid capsules and had the train "buzzin' down the tracks. ... We achieved lift off."

Unlike many of the rock festivals of the era, Festival Express is the idea and creation of one promoter, the business savvy Ken Walker. Rolling with the after-Woodstock-before-Altamont spirit of the times, Walker came up with the notion to put the festival on a rented, decked out CN train headed west from Toronto to Calgary. 'No cafeteria car' Walker told CN; he wanted a full service dining car that was soon to become the Festival Express Bar & Grill -- with amps and all the gear and Canadian Club the artists would need to jam down the rails.

Walker was a patron of the arts, not a hippie quasi-businessman. Uniquely, at a dollar per supergroup, there were no free concerts along this trail. More importantly, the train gave Janis, Jerry, Buddy and Levon the chance to, rather than pass each other backstage, ride that train together for a non-stop party in the bar car rolling from the Great Lakes to the Rockies. The musicians and crews got a rare chance to party "like it's 1999" -- and what a party it was.

* * * * *

I'll never forget the one time a friend dragged me to a Dead tribute band club gig in the late 80's in Baltimore. It was fascinating to me that the girls, decked out in quasi-authentic hippie outfits had no clue how to do the tripping (literally) arms-waving-for-trailers shuffle dance so common at the 1969 rock festivals. Ladies, if you wanna learn how this dance is done, watch the Canadian girls in the crowd footage from Festival Express.

* * * * *

A good example of the naivete' of hippie logic is the concert-goers in Montreal that thought -- as the Woodstock gospel taught - they had a right to get into the festival free. Well, promoter Walker was ready for the inevitable protests with mounted security forces. The problem did not get out of hand, and took a time-out once the supergroup bar car pulled out of Montreal's station and headed west. West across the great North American prairie.

Ticket sale protest continued All Down the Line. It became apparent to Walker that, even though all investors were too lose money on this adventure, the "ridin' that train, high on cocaine" party for the artists was to continue as planned. Some rare Janis Joplin footage of a bar car rehearsal jam illustrates why. Here we see Janis relaxing, smoking a cigarette with guitar masters on all sides working out the multi-part harmonies for various songs. On the Festival Express, the artists came first.

* * * * *
What separates Festival Express film from the far better Woodstock and the Maysles Brothers' / Zwerin's Gimme Shelter (which I've written about here and here) is both the more profound / diverse music and also the better work by the film directors. Despite the 'flaws in the fine leather', the director's cut of Woodstock and tragic, foreboding elegance of Gimme Shelter are history right up in your face. Festival Express boils down to a Janis Joplin love letter with The Band -- Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson in particular -- covering her back with a mystical audio shroud. And Buddy Guy startin' down the Delta bluesman highway.

Janis Joplin sings this love letter back to close the film:

....
I figure if you're a woman
Man, if you're really a woman
You already know what you need, man.
You already know what you're looking for,
Man, I found out out at fourteen years old
And I been lookin' for it every since, too, man.

But, if you happen to be a young cat,
You know like about seventeen years old, just about
If you happen to be a young cat and you ain't figured it out yet,
I'll tell you what you need, baby,
When you got those strange thoughts in your head
You got those strange little weirdenesses happening to you, you don't know what they are
I'll tell ya what you need —

You need a sweet lovin' mama, babe,
Honey, sweet talkin' mama, babe.
You need a sweet lovin' mama, babe.
Honey, sweet talkin' mama, babe.

You need someone to listen to you,
Someone to want you,
Someone to hold you
Someone to need you
Someone to use you
Someone to want you
Someone to need you
Someone to hold you
Someone to want you
Someone to hold you

You need a mama, mama, mama, mama, mama, baby
....
Yeah
An' I'll make everything alright, yeah!
Hey! Yeah!!!!

(excepts from Janis' cover of Tell Mama (1966, by C. Carter) live at the Fest. Ex.)

Janis' superlative vocal high-priestess of Texas cool is, as they say: liver than you'll ever be. By the end, I was convinced Janis could indeed make everything alright. Rest in Peace dear Janis. Thanks for sending Lucinda Williams to take the edge off our grief, our loss.

Now turn the ignition of your hiking boots and get down to the library for some time travel on a DVD -- only stop allowed on the way back: Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival Cafe at the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets. You don't need to look for the intersection, man, it'll find you. If it doesn't, call Buddy Guy person-to-person in Chicago for directions.

Gimme Shelter: "All My Love's in Vain" (part 2)

(Simul-post)

Four months after Woodstock came the perfect storm -- just like a Nor'easter with an extra-tropical hurricane rolled in, everything that could go wrong at the Altamont Speedway on Saturday, December 6, 1969 did. The stage -- set overnight by volunteers and pros -- was unbarricaded and far to low. The acid was either too strong, flat-out bad, or a host of good trips went bad because this free concert was going terribly awry. And that's just part of the story; other problems and minor successes are discussed in part one of this post. And the quasi-satanic detonator, the best blues rock band ever, headed tacking into the San Francisco firestorm play-acting with full-throttle peace, love, and music counter-culture.

* * * * *

In Gimme Shelter, we arrive at Altamont with a audio segue way of the Stones in the studio doing "Street Fighting Man". First we see the "Friday nighters": the people who came to camp in the cold to get a dose of the Stones for free the next day. Bonfires and tilting jug-wine bottles fill the screen. As Saturday's dawn approaches, the bulk of the crowd streams in with 7 hours to catch their buzz in preparation for their dream festival -- a dream turned nightmare on a speedway with only one road in, and neighbors pissed off a week before the Stones hit town.

As festival day progresses, everything but the numerous bad trips make this seem like a peaceful scene mysteriously going bummer. Concert goers reported a lot of bad karma around that the cameras -- most of which are set to cover the stage -- didn't capture. This was not a scene of brother helping brother, but rather brothers and sisters stepping over those in need of help to make their plan for the day work out. And the "Friday nighters" -- they were toasted, tired and surly.

Cut to mid-morning at the Altamont stage: as the Flying Burrito Brothers play Six Days on the Road, we see our first fight break out between the crowd and the Angels there early. The bands change but the bad scene remains. All the while, more Angels arrive and more bikes parked near the stage get turned over as the crowd washes to the stage like an incoming flood tide.

The Maysles Brothers and Zwerin once again reassert themselves to present a succinct, cohesive vision of what happens next. Cut to the Jefferson Airplane --the tension breaks through the now shredded fabric of "Woodstock West". As Jagger will do later, Grace Slick begins both verbally and ad-lib vocally pleading for everyone to just cool out. Marty Balin of the Airplane is knocked out on stage, allegedly by an Angel, and this verbal indictment spreads to the crowd. It also reaches the musician community by word of mouth. We see Mike Shrieve, opening act Santana's drummer, briefing the Dead's Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir in a backstage chat.

And what was an incident is rapidly becoming a pattern: a band starts to play, a fight breaks out, a vain attempt to restore order ensues, the music starts again, and so does the violence. The film directors show us no more completed songs. All bands from here on out start playing only to find some strange alchemy makes the music a catalyst to confrontational aggression. Stranger in a strange land indeed.

The Angels become a source of no-nonsense authority. Night falls, the Angels clear a path to the stage for the Stones, and the anarchy flows into this winter night of such high expectations. Now keep in mind, if you had to pick the absolute wrong situation for the Stones' music, it is this one. The two Stones songs that the directors' include are "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Under my Thumb" -- both the the polar opposite of what's needed, John Lennon leading the crowd in a chant of "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." But Lennon's spirit is nowhere to be found.

The Stones take the stage, beginning their set with Sympathy for the Devil,but not getting more than 90 seconds into the song. Another fight breaks out -- keep in mind Mick, Charlie and you are watching this film afterwards in the editing room -- that Jagger sincerely but futilely tries to stop it. All the band members stop playing but Keith; it's that on-stage focus again that we saw at Madison Square Garden (discussed in part 1). Jagger pleads and shouts first to get Keith's attention and then to get him to stop playing. The Glimmer Twins are not shining tonight; the focus that served them so well in New York and Muscle Schoals is dragging them into the ominous evening they created. Jagger says to the crowd, "Something very funny always happens when we start that number," but the Stones head for the abyss by re-starting "that number".

The directors now give us an artful montage of the range of jet-fuel spiked emotions on and off the stage -- crowd members groovin' to the beat, trippin' hippies, mystified Angels, and organizer / disaster manager Sam Cutler resetting a knocked-over stage monitor.

Now the fights have got Keith's attention and he joins Jagger in vain efforts to manage the rising violence around the stage. The band raps up a short version of Sympathy and starts into "Under My Thumb" with Jagger ironically singing "I pray that it's all right", improvising to this authoritarian number.

Meredith Hunter, in the crowd, caught on film, cranks up the irony and starts the climactic finish of the film -- and the 60's. Hunter pulls a gun and goes for the stage; the Angels turn into Secret Service presidential bodyguards and take him out, permanently.

That's all the spoiler narrative you get. If you want to see Jagger's final reaction and the flashback closing of this artful documentary, you gotta see it for yourself; it's at your local library.

* * * * *

The Rolling Stones, and all the other musicians for that matter, become supporting players in this Shakespearean tragedy unfolding on American soil. The stars of the film now are: Sam Culter (concert organizer turned controller of microphone, stage, and dispenser of common sense authority); the Angels -- a cohesive, strong, ruthless cohort of men who are decidedly not there to see Woodstock West; the crowd was much like the Woodstock crowd save for the decidedly angry, tired, determined cohort who were undeterred and unaware that their attempts to get closer to the stage may result in knocking over motorcycles and getting a thrashing from a group of real street fighting men; and a few crowd members on extremely bad trips at a black hole of bad karma. Oh wait, and of course, the requisite character for any non-military crowd-based 20th century tragedy, one lone nut with a gun.

* * * * *

The California clubs of the Hell's Angels do not deserve the heat they've taken for their actions. If it had been the U.S. Secret Service ringing that stage when a prep pulled a gun and charged the stage, the now ex-perp would be just as dead and the agents given awards. Instead, the Angels did a hell of a job stopping a man with gun who looked like he was going for Jagger, Sirhan Sirhan style. Bottom line, the Angels tried to contribute in their own way, and history allows us to see their actions can be justified.

There are plenty of ways to let the Stones off the hook (e.g. the Stones were trapped in a trailer for security reasons all day and didn't understand what what was going on outside). That said, Mick Jagger is the man who both gets, and as the editing room clips show, feels ultimate responsibility for this catastrophe that, ultimately, he could not control. As President Harry Truman's desk sign read, "The buck stops here."

The film Gimme Shelter is a successful at pulling the puzzle pieces together. Moreover, given the music included and events recounted, this is the best rock film ever. It's transcendent message shines as surely as Hendrix's cover of Like a Rolling Stone transcends time, space, and color. The film stands as a documentary statement on a slice of American culture that is long gone, and yet made eternal by the music.

If I thought that I could sum this up better than Michael Lyndon does in his essay referenced above, I would. But I can't; Lyndon tells us that ".... Gimme Shelter became a masterpiece woven from three strands: a fine rock ’n’ roll band in full flight, Altamont’s developing tragedy, and the Stones’ reactions to watching the savagery they helped create."

'Love, it's just a kiss away ... War, it's just a shot away, shot away, shot away...'

The Blogosphere, Dream Covers, and Rock Celluloid

(Simul-post)

I've been looking for an excuse to rave about this film for a while, one of only two DVDs I own; now I've got it.

Every Wednesday, the floridacracker posts a new photo of Duane Allman. And every Wednesday a crew of Duane's ultra-fans comments on both a fine new photo and also a broad range of topics that flow from the comment interchange.

Yesterday, regular commenter/guitar player csason wrote, in part "... I've always wondered how 'The Weight' would have sounded with Janis on vocals instead of 'Retha. ..."

I hadn't had my coffee yet. I read and wrote my response comment so fast I suppressed my knowledge that Aretha Frankin had indeed done this song with Duane on guitar (from his Muscle Shoals studio musician era. (So shoot me if I don't let facts get in my way.) Csason's comment inspired this, corrected-here, response from me:

If your unhappy with 'Retha on vocals singin' "The Weight", here's an alternative to check out. In Martin Scorcese's film The Last Waltz -- The Band's last concert in 1978 at Winterland, Scorcese adds a few studio tracks to enhance what has been called the greatest concert movie ever (more on that below). On one of those filmed studio tracks, The Staple Singers and Emmylou Harris are aboard with Robbie and the boys to cover "The Weight". All the right people on stage take a verse. Mavis Staples' verse is as close to [the perfect way to sing this classic] as we may ever get. FYI.

Bottom Line: The Last Waltz CD set and DVD are both essentials. The Last Waltz link above explains more about this once-in-a-lifetime concert celebration. Further, on the DVD, Martin Scorsese and Robbie Robertson overdub a commentary on the film in the "bonus material." What you can learn about the craft of film-making from Scorcese and how great a human being Robbie is alone make this DVD a sound investment for any serious collector. And I haven't even discussed performances by Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, and Joni Mitchell, among others.

Finally, my top three rock films:

1. Albert and David Maysles' Gimme Shelter

2. Woodstock (The Director's Cut)

3. The Last Waltz

Honorable Mention: The Concert for Bangladesh

Chances are we’ll make it back ….

(Repost)
If you want objectivity, stop reading here.

Just after midnight on October 30, 2005, Sheryl Crow entranced this viewer with her debut of the song “Good is Good” on SNL, from her new release Wildflower. Forty minutes later she had unplugged the electric guitars and proceeded to reinvent, Nashville-style, her classic “(Are you) Strong Enough (to be my man)”, from her first album Tuesday Night Music Club.

A few weeks later, I got my hands on a copy of Wildflower. After listening to 3 and a half of the album’s cuts, I had to turn off the stereo. I was swirling in the eye of The Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much Too Dream Last Night".

As I have followed her solo career, I always thought Ms. Crow was work in progress, growing with each release. I am now ready to risk a prediction.

Double-clutch gear shift. Sir Isaac Newton spent an enormous amount of time calculating the date of the Second Coming / Judgment Day / the front wall fresco in the Sistine Chapel.

By 2060, the year in which Newton calculated the Apocalypse would occur, Ms. Crow’s body of work will rank with Jimi’s, Hank Sr.’s, Ms. Cline’s, and Mr. Lennon’s.

I’ll betcha my guitar.

Thanks for reading.

Johnny Cash's "American Recordings"

(Simul-post)

Strip it bare. Find the essence, the core, the soul of a song and record it before you die. Rick Rubin's production efforts on the American Recordings series does this flawlessly for the twilight of Johnny Cash's career.

As Wikipedia put the backstory,

.... Although he was no longer sought after by major labels, Cash was approached by producer Rick Rubin and offered a contract with Rubin's American Recordings label, better known for rap and hard rock than for country music. Under Rubin's supervision, he recorded the album American Recordings (1994) in his living room, accompanied only by his guitar. The album featured several covers of contemporary artists selected by Rubin, and saw much critical and commercial success .... Cash released a sequel, Unchained [1996], and enlisted the accompaniment of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. ... [In 1997, serious illness] forced Cash to curtail his touring. He was hospitalized in 1998 with severe pneumonia, which damaged his lungs. The albums American III: Solitary Man (2000) and American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002) contained Cash's response to his illness ....

These albums are digital gold (this review covers the 1st four of the five album series).

Take the unnerving, brutal realism of "Delia's Gone". As with Willy Nelson's "I Just Can't Let You Say Good-Bye", Cash explores the darker side of love where the timid simply will not tread.

With "The Man Who Couldn't Cry", Cash delivers a hard-edged parable that made me feel like I was listening to a secular preacher.

Unchained (1996) is an eclectic set of covers mixed with superb Cash originals. Add Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers as the back-up band and you have the perfect crossover album.

Two more thoughts and I'll wrap this up. I got an 80 minute, 24 song sampler of these 4 albums from my godson -- he's on the verge of turning 30. My chronic fears about the pop dung young people listen to today are now gone. I've been working as a song-miner for 40 years, but the next generation's safe if they can turn me on to material this good.

Finally, one song from this album series does something rare: what Jimi Hendrix did with Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", what SRV did with Jimi's "Little Wing": covering another outstanding singer/songwriter's original and making the cover version definitive, the best version of the song ever done. I stand here to testify that Johnny Cash's cover of U2's "One", from American III: Solitary Man, is the definitive version of this song. I can't believe I'm writing this, but Bono, Edge, Adam, Larry, sit down and take notes. The Man in Black has stolen this song from you. From now on, for me, "One" is a Johnny Cash song that U2 wrote and popularized.