Title:American III: Solitary Man By: Cash, Johnny Released by: Sony Released on: 2000 Rating (out of 10): 8 Date: 10/26/2001
Cash Fuses with Modern Rock
It’s Thanksgiving weekend and I’m visiting Memphis to take in some blues and original rock ‘n' roll history, and I’m browsing through the record bins at Sun Studio before my time to enter the hallowed room where rock ‘n' roll began.
Music is playing in the background as it always is at Sun Studio, and the only music they play is from Sun Studio artists. That’s how I learn that U2 recorded four tracks of Rattle and Hum there, and I hear the strains of their “One” begin to fill the shop area. But who is that singing?
The voice is deep, rumbling, deliberate… unique… dripping with character. The acoustic guitar beats a steady rhythm. Could that be Johnny Cash? He did record “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” for Sun Studio to begin his career in 1957, so it’s possible. And there is no mistaking that voice, but when did Johnny Cash ever record a U2 song?
I remember a rumored new album in the works and get excited, for I know this album will be added to my collection.
As well as I like U2’s original version of “One,” Johnny Cash’s rendition adds new layers of meaning, almost like he’s thinking deeply about every line he renders.
There’s a melancholy sense of loneliness here; perhaps it’s my reaction to the knowledge that Cash has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Whatever the reason, just this one song was enough to compel me to buy the record.
What a bonus it is to find that Cash has compiled 14 songs for this latest collection, called American III: Solitary Man. Some were recorded in California and others at The Cash Cabin Studio in Tennessee, but as Cash says in the liner notes, the place doesn’t matter:
The song is the thing that matters. Before I can record, I have to hear it, sing it, and know that I can make it feel like my own, or it won't work. I worked on these songs until I felt like they were my own.
Indeed, they do sound like his own, even the two where Tom Petty sings background vocals—Petty’s own “I Won’t Back Down” and Neil Diamond’s “Solitary Man.”
Later, Cash plays a humorous country-style ditty he wrote (called “I’m Leaving Now” ) along with Merle Haggard, and you’d think these two have collaborated for years the way they balance each other.
Cash may be getting like B.B. King now, where everyone wants to record a song with him; Sheryl Crow joins in with Cash’s wife on background vocals for “Field of Diamonds” and plays accordion on a couple other songs.
He certainly doesn’t back down to excellence by inviting unknown musicians to his recording gigs. He has Norman Blake backing him on guitar throughout! Norman Blake is one of the finest bluegrass flat pickers you’ll find, ranking up there with the legendary Doc Watson, and he has several albums in his own right. But regardless of who plays or sings along, the songs are clearly Johnny Cash material. No one can match that deep, experienced voice of his.
Over the years Cash has promoted traditional songs, and he does so once again with “Wayfaring Stranger.” I’ve heard this countless times, but Cash’s deliberate and halting version brings it back anew with far more heartfelt feeling than Burl Ives ever mustered.
Cash still wears black and continues to be photographed alone. He’s not really alone because he has family and friends that care for him, and an ever-growing fan base that stretches across the generations, just as the songs here range from old traditional folk roots to modern rock-group material. So in one sense the album name is a misnomer.
But in another sense American III: Solitary Man is a completely appropriate name. No one can sing like Johnny Cash and make you feel the reality of the lyrics like he can. That’s why I knew when I heard him sing “One” while waiting in Sun Studio that I had to get this.
