Americana Music Reviews

 

Dressed In Black:

A Tribute to Johnny Cash
Dualtone
by David Pilot

I hate tribute albums in a way that transcends my rabid, near-psychopathic hatred of Kiss and Def Leppard cover bands. Pearls In the Snow? No. I like Kinky. I like Kinky singing Kinky. Move along. That Eagles compilation by various Nashville artists a few years back? I own it. I also own a fruitcake from 1976. It's on the shelf next to my special edition collector bottles from Jack Daniel just to remind me life has a downside.

But -- there's always a damn but, ain't there? -- this particular tribute is special. We've all heard the accolades over the years, especially as the Man in Black watches his health head for the border while he continues to try to carry off a little bit of our darkness on his back. The striking thing about those accolades, though, consistently goes straight to their widely varied points of origin. Seems like everybody from June to Bono loves Johnny. Punk bands cover his songs. MTV gives him airtime. And with Dressed In Black, Dualtone has unleashed a stream of artists who capably prove why Cash and his music are so revered.

It starts with Hank III, whose nasal 'Bama vocals sound so much like his granddaddy when he wants them to. III's rendition of "Wreck of the Old '97" is impeccable in its simplicity. Production values on the track leave the sound skirting the edges of mono territory way out on the AM dial, and the resulting collision of Cash's lyrics, Hank's voice, and Hank Sr.'s best sound stops just short of overwhelming.

Robbie Fulks follows with "Cry, Cry, Cry" and in the best Fulks tradition Robbie's already explained everything better in his liner note contributions than any of the rest of us will attempt to do:

"I discovered Johnny Cash 'At San Quentin' and Playboy magazine in 1970 while visiting my 7 year old girlfriend at her trailer. I took a childish liking to both, not realizing at the time which was the nakeder."

That nakedness, visceral in scope at times, is the real legacy Johnny Cash leaves on the table when he finally goes. It's the reason the man's music is universally respected, the reason a song like "Boy Named Sue" (not covered on this disc, by the way) can make you laugh out loud a split second before you think to yourself, "Wait one fucking minute. Did my old man maybe have a reason for some of that shit he pulled?" It's also the reason so many Cash songs ring true, and play so well in the spotlight of a tribute that mixes artistic styles in the same alchemistic way the executives at my day job mix and match resumes when considering promotions. For proof, queue up Raul Malo at his Orbison-tinged best on "I Guess Things Happen That Way." The muted acoustic guitar and Southwestern flavor carry Malo's mannered vocal along in the smoothest of Mavericks fashion, using aural beauty to surround the simplest and most painful of fatalistic lyrics:

God gave me that girl to lean on
Then he put me on my own
Heaven help me be a man
And have the strength to stand alone
I don't like it
But I guess
Things happen that way

Play it for your twelve-year-old, the one that loves 'N Sync and never heard of Cash, and listen to the rave review.

Standout crossover successes like that abound on this record. Rev. Horton Heat checks in with "Get Rhythm," noting that the Live At Folsom Prison record became "the template for everything I try to do now, both musically and lyrically." Bruce Robison and wife Kelly Willis, well-known for their own contemplative and introspective songwriting styles, chose the Richard Farina/Pauline Marden song "Pack Up Your Sorrows" simply because Cash's version convinced Robison a folk singer could "kick your ass." Redd Volkaert, no stranger to the presence of an artist whose style has earned no-holds-barred respect from the honky-tonks to the Viper Room, serves up "Luther Played the Boogie" with the Telecaster mastery he's built his entire career on.

There are faithful covers here, too. James Intveld's near note-for-note rendition of "Folsom Prison Blues" is solid and loving, but not a stand-out. Dale Watson's take on "I Walk the Line" gets style points for proving that Watson can deliver vocals in the lower registers with the same sort of ominous optimism that Cash made a trademark. And on "Jackson," Mandy Barnett proves she's got the kind of voice country music hasn't heard in decades. Somebody unleash that girl. She's contributed to some other recent collaborations, including the stellar Caught In the Webb: A Tribute to Webb Pierce record and a slew of others. Here she sounds as close to June Carter Cash as anyone not named June Carter Cash can. It's time for Mandy to tear Nashville down and rebuild what misplaced Faith hath destroyed.

After all of this, though, you'll find that the track that ties this record together and provides enough angles for literary dissection of the Cash catalogue and legacy well into the next millennium comes from another artist who knows his way around the topics of God, Love and Murder fairly well in his own right. Slaughter, Kentucky's favorite son Chris Knight's take on "Flesh and Blood" fits him so well you'd swear it's a self-penned hidden track from some bootleg copy of A Pretty Good Guy. If your college kid thinks "L.A. Freeway" is the best song Jerry Jeff Walker's ever written, then this is the first track you play for him when you decide it's time to teach him about Johnny Cash. Knight's weathered vocal chords paint pictures of mountain hollows and coal-mining towns all by themselves. The simplicity of a dirt-poor Kentucky childhood amid some of nature's purest beauty could easily have been the impetus behind the lyrics of this simplest of love songs. But when it's said and done, the message the Man in Black's been preaching from the stereo pulpits for years is made the clearest here:

A cardinal sang just for me
And I thanked him for the song
Then the sun went slowly
Down in the west
And I had to move along
These are some of the things on which
My mind and spirit feed
Mother Nature's quite a lady
But you're the one I need
Flesh and blood
Need flesh and blood
And you're the one I need

So many layers in those few lines. So many stories, so much of us. That's why Johnny Cash matters. Listen to Dressed In Black, and realize for maybe the first time just how much of Johnny you hear every time one of your favorite artists records a truly great song. In the truest fashion, with often deftly understated delivery, the roster of talent displayed on this record succeeds in delivering a tribute in the most empirical sense. Hank was country music. Elvis was rock 'n roll. Johnny Cash is Americana. See just how far that umbrella can spread by going right now to www.dualtone.com and getting a copy of this record for yourself. No other artist in the last fifty years­ maybe since the great classical composers, actually­ has made so much music that can take form and shape and substance so readily in the diverse interpretations of others. The years have proven Johnny meant it when he sang

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything is OK
But I'll try to carry off
A little darkness on my back
Til things are brighter
I'm the Man in Black

God bless you, Johnny. Things are brighter, if only because you did carry off some of the burden in every song you wrote.

Contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net

 
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