A Man Of The West- The Old West Ballads Of Johnny Cash

CD Review

Johnny Cash Sings The True Ballads Of The Old West, Johnny Cash, Sbme Special Mkts, 2009

I have spent some time, and I believe time well spent, at this site over the pass couple of years talking about things of the West, old and new. You know the stuff of legends like we grew up with as kids, at least my generation, the generation of ’68, did, for better or worst. Blame it on Larry McMurtry, his books, and his incessant Old West reviews in “The New York Review Of Books”. Some of this stuff is genuine history, things that today’s labor militants should know about like the struggles of the Western Federation Of Miners, Big Bill Haywood and the legendary Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World) who led many a strike against the mine, farm, and lumber bosses.

Other things are, and should be treated a little more circumspectly, like the legends of Jesse James and John Wesley Harding, especially those who honor the Northern victory in the American Civil War. There has, in short, been no lack of song and storytelling about the Old West. This is a round-about way of introducing Johnny Cash’s valuable little cache of old time Western-oriented material, mainly ballads, including some long needed focus on the struggle s of Native Americans, the odd group out in the West, old and new.

The name Johnny Cash, although well thought of in this space, has mainly been mentioned in connection with his connection to the legendary Carter family (he married Maybelle’s daughter, June, for those who are not familiar with that family’s genealogy), a family more noted for their contributions to mountain music, eastern mountain music, than the hard western plains described in this album. Nonetheless, Johnny in that deep, authoritative and plaintive voice of his has brought the Old West alive in this recording. I should like to note several stick out items of interest here. First off- the rendition, based on Longfellow, of “Hiawatha’s Vision”; an interesting song about the fate of the assassin of President James Garfield in the post-Civil War period, “Mr. Garfield; and, a song of the original old West, Kentucky, in” Road to Kaintuck”. Then to finish this compilation up there are songs that truly reflect the struggles of the Old West, “Stampede,” “Blizzard,” “The Streets Of Laredo,” and “Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie”. Just a nice little slice of Americana, mainly not mentioned in the history books, or by western Chamber of Commerces.