Johnny Cash releases unreleased album “Songwriter”
In early 1993, Johnny Cash he recorded an album of demos at LSI Studios in Nashville: they were songs he had written over the course of several years. Just after those sessions, Johnny met producer Rick Rubin and those recordings were shelved, the two in fact embarked on the partnership that took the name 'American Recordings'.
About thirty years later, John Carter Cash, son of Johnny and June Carter Cash, rediscovered the songs by isolating Johnny's voice and acoustic guitar. John Carter along with co-producer David “Fergie” Ferguson invited a group of musicians who had already played with John: guitarist Marty Stuart and bassist Dave Roe, as well as drummer Pete Abbott and brought them to Cash Cabin, the venue in Hendersonville , Tennessee, where Johnny wrote, recorded and relaxed, breathing new life into the tracks, bringing the sound back to the roots and heart of the songs.
The album, released on June 28th by Mercury Nashville/Universal Music, entitled “Songwriter”, contains songs written exclusively by Johnny Cash. “Songwriter” (preorder here) will be available on CD, 2CD LIMITED EDITION, VINYL (in various color options) and DIGITAL. The album's release is preceded by the first single, “Well Alright”.
“Dad's advice for anything, whether it was life or making music, was always: Follow your heart,” said John Carter.
And this truth that his father taught him guided him at every stage of the process of creating “Songwriter”. After reducing the original recordings to just Johnny's voice and guitar, he turned to David “Fergie” Ferguson, Johnny's longtime friend and go-to engineer for nearly thirty years, and the two began to shape an album that embellished Johnny's songwriting while remaining faithful to the spirit of the recordings. Along with John Carter, David “Fergie” Ferguson is probably one of the people who knew best what Johnny liked when it came to recording since they worked together starting in the early 80s: he was in fact the studio engineer for Cowboy Jack Clement, where Johnny often loved to record. She would continue to work with him on many records, including most of his Mercury albums and the 'American Recordings' series with Rick Rubin until his last songs in 2003. “He was always my hero and I just felt like the luckiest guy in the world to be able to record it,” Fergie said.
When thinking about the back-up band two musicians were indispensable: guitarist Marty Stuart, who played with Johnny in the Tennessee Three from 1980 to 1986, and bassist Dave Roe, who toured with Cash's band in the early '80s. 90 and then for almost a decade. Drummer Pete Abbott, formerly with the Average White Band, completes the trio, along with other guest musicians such as Ana Cristina Cash (backing vocals), Matt Combs (acoustic guitar and mandolin), Mike Rojas (B3 organ and piano), Russ Pahl (guitar, bass, dobro and steel) and Sam Bacco (percussion); other participants are Kerry Marx, Harry Stinson, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys with his bluesy guitar on “Spotlight” and Vince Gill duetting on “Poor Valley Girl”. Johnny's old friend Waylon Jennings sings on two songs from the original sessions, “I Love You Tonite” and “Like A Soldier.” “Nobody plays Cash better than Marty Stuart, and Dave Roe obviously played with Dad for many years,” John Carter said.
Enriching the original demos with an entirely new band, John Carter and Fergie, along with engineer Trey Call, have brought Johnny into the modern era and made an incredible-sounding record that sounds as if Johnny had recorded it today. “In the approach we went straight to the roots, as far as the sound is concerned, and tried not to over-hype it. – continues John Carter – We built it as if dad were in the room. This is what we tried to do. Between us, Fergie and I spent thousands of hours with Dad in the recording studio, so we tried to act like he was there.”
“I think this record is the way I would have liked to make one if I was ever responsible for one, before Rick Rubin or after Jack Clement,” Fergie said. “I've known John Carter since he was a boy, so it was great to finally work with him. He gave me a lot of freedom, especially in terms of groove and things like that. We went exactly in the same direction. There was never a conversation or a plan about a final product, it was just about doing our best.”
“Songwriter” gets off to a powerful start with “Hello Out There,” a guitar riff from Marty Stuart and Johnny’s message of salvation, somewhere between cosmic country and gospel. Recorded shortly before Johnny was recruited by U2 for “The Wanderer” on the “Zooropa” album. “I think Dad wrote this about the Voyager spaceship around the time it launched,” John Carter said. I remember him sitting in Cowboy's office and singing to him.”
During the recording period Johnny was in a very positive moment both mentally and vocally. The songs he chose to record were among his most personal, written over decades, some dating back to the mid-to-late 1970s. “I Love You Tonite” is a love letter to his beloved wife June while “Poor Valley Girl” is about both June and her mother, Maybelle Carter, probably written after her passing in 1978. “Drive On” she wrote inspired by the chronic pain he suffered from a broken jaw in the early 1990s and talks about the hardships endured by Vietnam War veterans.
“I think he wanted to understand in his heart, to find peace with his own physical pain, and that there were other people who had much greater pain, who had deeper PTSD, to gain more humility or greater acceptance of his own condition,” said John Carter who, together with Wesley Orbison, closes the song with an arrangement of psychedelic guitars.
“Like A Soldier” instead talks about his struggle with addiction and, ultimately, recovery. “It's something he wrote after his first stint in a halfway house,” John Carter said. The adversary he had fought, his enemy was addiction, he was entering a new life and had the opportunity to heal. Both “Drive On” and “Like A Soldier” would later be included, with different arrangements, on the first episode of American Recordings' Johnny in 1994, but these are the very first recordings.
“Have You Been to Little Rock?” expresses Johnny Cash's pride in his homeland over a beautiful traditional melody, while the theme for “She Sang Sweet Baby James” is a young single mother singing James Taylor's “Sweet Baby James” to comfort her baby. Johnny had been a fan of Taylor ever since Taylor performed on the first season of the “Johnny Cash Show” in 1971.
In the early '90s, country music was changing and Johnny found himself in a lull in his career, despite his unparalleled songwriting and voice. “My father was probably as clear with himself as at any time in his life and I think that voice, which was somewhat ignored at the time, needs to be heard,” John Carter said. “The man at that age, in that specific moment of his life, deserves more attention and concentration because unfortunately he did not achieve what he should have”.
For John Carter, working on Johnny's music is a form of catharsis and communion with his father.
“It's not about selling Johnny Cash, he would do it himself,” John Carter said. “I'm grateful that this record is here, even if it's just for me, because it reminds me of who my father was, and I think there are other people who knew him as I knew him who will be just as moved,” John Carter said. “But I also believe that there are people who have never listened to my father's music who will find interest in listening to this album and my father's voice. I hope this sparks some curiosity to delve deeper and find out more more because there is a lot to read in those pages”.
What might Johnny think of “Songwriter”? “I think Johnny would say what he said about every record I worked on with him, every record, when he got to the end, he would always say: I think it's the best record I've ever made,” Fergie adds. “You could count on it. He certainly would have said it. I think he would be really proud.”
“Songwriter” shifts the focus to Johnny's songwriting. “I wanted them to be songs that audiences didn't know to make people pay attention to who Johnny was as a songwriter and who Johnny was as a representative of the American voice,” John Carter said. “One of my most important goals over the last 10 years has been to make sure that the story, in the best way possible, gives him the opportunity to establish himself as the great writer that he is. Bob Dylan has always said that John is one of the greatest writers of American Music and I agree. I want to bring that to the forefront. His songwriting is definitely something we can listen to and especially his lyrics.”
“Songwriter” will also be available in a DOUBLE CD LTD EDITION with 12 bonus tracks on the second CD, recordings of some of his biggest hits or best-known songs re-recorded in the 1980s.
Tracklist:
CD/DIGITAL
1. Hello Out There
2. Spotlight
3. Drive On
4. I Love You Tonite
5. Have You Ever Been to Little Rock?
6. Well Alright
7. She Sang Sweet Baby James
8. Poor Valley Girl
9. Soldier Boy
10.Sing It Pretty Sue
11. Like A Soldier
CD 1: SONGWRITER
1. Hello Out There
2. Spotlight
3. Drive On
4. I Love You Tonite
5. Have You Ever Been to Little Rock?
6. Well Alright
7. She Sang Sweet Baby James
8. Poor Valley Girl
9. Soldier Boy
10.Sing It Pretty Sue
11. Like A Soldier
CD 2: ICON
1. I Walk The Line (1988 Version)
2. The Night Hank Williams Came To Town (with Waylon Jennings)
3. Sixteen Tons
4. Long Black Veil (1988 Version)
5. Cry, Cry, Cry (1988 Version)
6. Guess Things Happen That Way (1988 Version)
7. Get Rhythm (1988 Version)
8. Ring Of Fire (1988 Version)
9. Folsom Prison Blues (1988 Version)
10.Cat's In The Cradle
11.Hey Porter
12.Wanted Man
VINYL
Side A
1. Hello Out There
2. Spotlight
3. Drive On
4. I Love You Tonite
5. Have You Ever Been To Little Rock?
Side B
1. Well Alright
2. She Sang Sweet Baby James
3. Poor Valley Girl
4. Soldier Boy
5. Sing It Pretty Sue
6. Like A Soldier
