A New Chapter of the Story
John Carter Cash finds new insight into his legendary father with Johnny Cash’s 'Songwriter.'
There has always been something bittersweet about the music of late legends. On the one hand, there’s comfort in returning to a favorite piece of work. It’s satisfying and grounded in a way that seems chiseled in stone. On the other, it’s hard not to wish for just a little more music to absorb – a little more insight into an artist who unlocked some closed off parts of the human soul.
With Songwriter, that wish comes true.
A new album from a true American icon, the project features 11 previously-unreleased recordings – and although it’s not the first posthumous Johnny Cash release, it may be the most revealing. All written solo by Cash and recorded in 1993, the songs capture a giant of the form at a personal turning point, after his myth was made, but before his second act had taken shape, with his powers fully intact.
After his passing in 2003, Cash’s son, John Carter Cash, agonized over what to do with these unfinished tracks. They were filled with his father’s trademark vigor, with authoritative vocals and cutting lyrical insight, but the sound was unfocused. Even so, Carter Cash came to feel like they offered new insight into a specific period of Cash’s life, and has now found a way to do them justice.
Working with longtime Cash engineer David “Ferg” Ferguson, Carter Cash stripped all but his father’s voice and acoustic guitar from the original recordings, fleshing them out with mix of Cash’s go-to players – like Marty Stuart and (the now late) Dave Roe, along with Dan Auerbach, Russ Paul, Pete Abbott, and more. In the end, they created a striking presentation to match Cash’s late-career vision. It’s eclectic and bold, but neither throwback nor modern – opening another chapter of the Johnny Cash story.
John Carter Cash spoke with Good Country about the project and what it’s like to care for his father’s legacy.
A lot of people would be interested in this, so to start off, tell me a little about dusting these songs off. I mean, did you always know that they existed?
John Carter Cash: Well, I was actually at at least one of the sessions, because I hear my guitar on a couple of the tracks. My dad, he was at the end of his term with Polygram and hadn't yet moved on to work with Rick [Rubin], so these just sort of fell between the cracks. They were songs he would've looked at as demos, but it was a band recording that was done.
He had a certain wish for the music that would be coming out after he started working with Rick. These particular songs, the music backing him didn't fit within that philosophy. And not to say it wasn't good, but the strongest thing about it to me was dad's vocal and his guitar. So under his sort of direction … we finally figured out a way to record new music. And we asked ourselves, "What would Johnny Cash do about this production? Who would he call?"
I knew the record was there, I guess you would say, but I didn't feel like it was the time. Dad asked me to follow my heart with this project and a number of others. He said, "Just follow your heart with what to do with these things." And so I did.
So your dad knew there would be more of his music coming out, even after he was gone. Was he always careful with his legacy, or was he more of a "go with the flow" kind of artist?
I think it came and went. I mean, there were times that he definitely went with the flow, and maybe even when these songs were recorded, he was sort of doing whatever came next. He just picked a body of songs that he wanted to record. In the early 1980s, at the end of his term with Columbia, he was going with the flow and doing whatever was fun or whatever he wanted to. But then there were times when he would get a distinct vision – like with the prison albums or the American Recording Series or all through his career in the 1960s when he was doing the concept albums.
Somebody asked me the other day, "When you were in the studio with your father, if you were working as associate producer with Rick or whatever, how did you produce Johnny Cash?" And I'm like, "You really don't produce Johnny Cash." And that's the essence of it. Usually he's got an independent vision. And I won't say that there were lackluster recordings that were done when that vision wasn't in place, but sometimes he did struggle in life, whether it was addiction or just ego. It's like, sometimes the music didn't have that focus. But one thing I found about this record is the joy that I know he had for writing. And also, this is a period of time when he was still in prime voice. Just this real intense, bellowing voice and just confidence. So getting that out to the world was also important to me.
It's a really strong vocal performance, for sure. One thing about these songs, they cover a lot of ground. They're talking about love, spirituality, humor. Do you think there’s a common thread?
I think he's the common thread. When he would get into a song, sometimes it was from a personal experience. "Give My Love To Rose," that I know he heard a story about someone who was found on the railroad tracks, and the man that found him told [my dad] the story. Dad put that together as a piece of music and he put himself in place of the man who found the guy. Or, it's like, "Well, all right, dad didn't go to a laundromat and meet a girl. He was married." But he put himself in the place of that person.
I think if you look at my father's great albums, there is a consistent thread of diversity. There's songs of love specifically. It's usually about my mother in the later recordings, of course, but you can go all the way back to "Walk the Line" about [his first wife] Vivian. There's songs about struggle, hardship, loss. There's songs about faith in God and his own enduring faith. And somehow there's a lot of those that have this metaphysical, other-worldly quality, like "The Man Comes Around" or "Redemption," where you really don't know you're listening to a gospel song, but you are.
"Hello Out There" is like that, and you said it's one of your favorites. It's eerily modern in a way. It speaks to the times, but I'm sure it did back then, too. Can you tell me why you like that track?
Well, I mean, from the very beginning when I'd heard that song, I wanted to feel the space. … We started the production with Marty [Stuart] and just his guitars. I mean, it's like the voice calling to us from the past, reminding us of the future we are headed to. There's an emotional climax in the song that uplifts, but it's got this production around it – and strings by Matt Combs.
It's got my wife, Anna Christina Cash doing that high pitched perfect note. But it's my father leading the orchestra, I mean, it's his words that made all that come into being. It means so much to me. It really does. The song itself. And then my daughter, Grace … she's got my mother's blue eyes, and she stars in the music video – and it will absolutely lay you down. I don't know if they want me to say that or not, but I mean it will lay you out, man.
The other one I wanted to ask you about is "Like A Soldier," just because that one seems to have an element of hope underneath it – this idea that even as you get older and grow into life, there's reason to be happy. How does that song strike you?
Yeah. I mean, we look at "Drive On" and we look at "Like A Soldier" and I'm reminded of where my father was at that point in his life. He was learning to deal with physical pain. He broke his jaw and it had to be wired shut for a period of time. He couldn't even talk because of the jaw being broke during a dental surgery and nerve damage in the face, all these different things. He didn't know what he was going to look like.
He was dealing with physical pain every day, not wanting to live in addiction and the hell that it brought, but looking for ways to find understanding. And so he read books by Vietnam veterans who had struggled through war, come home with physical or emotional injuries, maybe both, and learned to live with that post-traumatic stress. And he would read book after book during that time period. When I look at a "Like A Soldier," he is talking about his own addictions. He's not talking about a real war for his life, he's talking about the hell he put himself through or that life had handed him, and he didn't quite know how to deal with, but he was finding ways to heal.
This album and Out Among the Stars are two periods of my dad's career that haven't gotten a lot of focus. And it's very interesting, because this was recorded in 1993 and Out Among the Stars in the early 1980s, and they were periods of great recovery for my father. They are periods when he was focusing on his own recovery, when he was sober, when he was in focus, and when he was actively studying healing and putting the effort into his own healing. That's what I'm reminded of. Columbia dropped him, he left Polygraph. So there's a lot to glean from songs like "Like A Soldier or "Drive On," for people out there going through struggles.
Just the fact that he could put that into song is amazing, so thank you for sharing. The last thing here is, I just wonder what it was like for you personally to interact with these songs. Was it like being able to spend time with your dad again? And what do you hope people take away from this project?
Well, I mean, I encounter Johnny Cash every day of my life. I don't see my father anymore. I can't pick up the phone and call him. I can't ask him for advice, but I can look through his written works or I can listen to his music. I can be reminded of things he taught me. The music lives on and it's cliche, but still it's true. It has a life of its own. It's out there touching people right now for the first time.
I don't want to just release another record to release another record. We don't have to do that. But these are works that he did within his lifetime, and works that I feel like – this particular Songwriter album, in essence – it makes a point. So I hope it carries on in a way that he would've liked his music and his career to [carry on]. But even if I'm not involved at all, the joy is still being shared, because he is the one who wrote the book.
Photo Credit: John Carter Cash by David McClister.
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