The most interesting song on the album is “The Greatest Cowboy of Them All,” in which he compares Jesus to his cowboy heroes and uses cowboy imagery to point out that Jesus loves every critter and helps them all, even the mavericks who stray. This album seems to sum up Cash’s spiritual life and spiritual journey better than any other.
If he had never made another gospel album, this one would stand as an excellent summation of Cash’s Christian beliefs. In 1994 he released an album, Cash: American Recordings, on the new American Recordings label produced by alternative producer Rick Rubin. The album was done with just Cash and his guitar and summed up Cash’s career pretty well. The first song, “Delia’s Gone,” was originally recorded by Cash in 1961.
There were folk songs (“Tennessee Stud” and “Delia’s Gone”), a humorous song (“The Man Who Couldn’t Cry”), a cowboy song (“Oh Bury Me Not”), a gospel song (“Why Me, Lord”), songs with a haunting personal vision (“The Beast in Me” and “Bird on a Wire”) and four songs he wrote. The self-penned songs tell stories and encompass Cash’s spiritual vision.
There was nothing new on this album except the audience; young people suddenly discovered Johnny Cash and found him both profound and “cool.” It was a surprising rebirth for a man whose audiences and fans now included people younger than some of his grandchildren. “Let the Train Whistle Blow” is yet another song with the imagery of a train, this time to carry his memory when he’s gone.
“Drive On” is a song looking back at the wounds of Vietnam, and “Redemption” is a straightforward gospel song about the old time religion and a sinner washed in the blood. “Like a Soldier” is the best of Cash’s songs on the album. In this song he looks back over his life and sees a wild young man who is lucky to be alive and is thankful that God and a good woman have seen him through.
Although the song tells of regrets from the past, in the end Cash is convinced the past was necessary for him to arrive at where he landed. These “American” albums validated Cash’s status and stature as an American icon and gained him a new, young audience. After the first album, three others followed.
His final album, The Man Comes Around, contains fifteen songs. It begins with the Cashpenned title song that carries the gospel message. But there’s a double meaning—”the man” could also be read as Johnny Cash giving his final message while he is alive. The song “Hurt” from Nine Inch Nails was filmed as a video and won a number of awards from both MTV and the Country Music Association, which tells you a whole lot about the timeless appeal of Johnny Cash.
Also on this final album, he recorded one of his old songs, “Give My Love to Rose”; a Hank Williams song, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”; the old western song “Streets of Laredo”; a Beatles song, “In My Life”; a Simon and Garfunkel song, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”; and the Roberta Flack song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”
In May 2003, June Carter Cash went into the hospital for heart surgery and fell into a coma; she died on May 15, a devastating loss to Johnny Cash. Within a week after her death, Cash contacted some friends because he wanted to record more songs. During the four months between her death and his, Cash recorded about 50 songs.
In September he was set to fly to Los Angeles to record songs with Rick Rubin but failing health forced him to enter the hospital, where he died on September 12. It took a long hard life to write the songs Johnny Cash wrote, and a good, sweet life to sing them. Johnny Cash lived both. The songs he wrote reflect both the hardness and the sweetness of his life, the sinner and the saint, the success and the failure, the strengths and weaknesses, all wrapped up in the greatness called Johnny Cash.
SOURCES: Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows 1946- Present. New York: Ballantin, 1988. 152 The Cowboy in Country Music Cash, Johnny. Cash: The Autobiography. With Patrick Carr. Cash: The Autobiography. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997. _____. Man in Black. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975. Cusic, Don. Johnny Cash: The Songs. New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2005. Smith, John L. The Johnny Cash Discography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985. Whitburn, Joel. Top Country Singles 1944 –1988. Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, 1989. Wren, Christopher S. Winners Got Scars Too: The Life and Legends of Johnny Cash. New York: Dial Press, 1971.