Tracks: 1) Sugartime; 2) Down The Street To 301; 3) Life Goes On; 4) Port Of Lonely Hearts; 5) Cry Cry Cry; 6) My Treasure; 7) Oh Lonesome Me; 8) So Doggone Lonesome; 9) You’re The Nearest Thing To Heaven; 10) Story Of A Broken Heart; 11) Hey Porter; 12) Home Of The Blues.
REVIEW
More like Now Here’s More Of Johnny’s Cash, as this is yet another bastardized release on the part of Sun Records, and those were getting crassier and crassier with each passing year. In fact, the only reason why I am allocating some space to it at all is that, somehow, this LP ended up being the only «proper» longplay album for Cash in the year of 1961; his output for Columbia at the time was limited to a couple of singles (including the famous ‘Tennessee Flat Top Box’, which we shall tackle a bit later) and a guest appearance on the otherwise quite obscure «atmospheric» album The Lure Of The Grand Canyon, recorded by the orchestra of Andre Kostelanetz and featuring a performance of Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite with overdubbed «nature sounds» and a lengthy spoken-word piece from Johnny, your local tour guide through the wonders and mysteries of an American natural landmark. I do believe that in between this historical curio and a set of bottom-of-the-barrel Sun tracks, most people would still go for the latter — even in spite of all the annoying vocal and instrumental overdubs.
The biggest problem, actually, is that way too many songs here are simply sneaked in from previous releases, in the faint hope that nobody notices because so few people bought the previous releases anyway. ‘You’re The Nearest Thing To Heaven’ and ‘Home Of The Blues’ had already been featured on Sings The Songs That Made Him Famous (it may be possible that these are slightly different mixes, but you’d have to be a full-paid Cash scholar to really want to bother). ‘Cry Cry Cry’ was both Johnny’s first single and included on his first Sun LP. ‘Hey, Porter’ was an important single as well (the first recording he ever made with the Tennessee Two) and at least its inclusion is somewhat justified because the track had so far avoided LP release; but no such excuse can be made for ‘So Doggone Lonesome’, which was also a part of With His Hot And Blue Guitar! years ago.
This ultimately leaves us with but seven «new» songs (furthermore, some of which had been issues as «preview» singles by Sun in 1960), a measly 14 minutes of previously unheard material, and hardly any of it will make any difference. Somewhat inauspiciously, the album begins with Johnny’s slightly mismatched cover of ‘Sugartime’ — the song may have been written by a couple of professional country songwriters, but its most common association is with The McGuire Sisters, and that’s a pop vibe that would be about as consistent with Johnny’s personality as classic jazz fusion. Not that Johnny couldn’t write, perform, or record sweet, unpretentious, unassuming pop songs — like any other human being, he could occasionally be «simply happy» and even want to display it publicly — but to be convincing, they needed context, and ‘Sugartime’ just drops out at you as if saying, «hey, I want a pop hit!» Certainly Johnny must have liked the song, otherwise he wouldn’t have cut it in the first place, but I’m totally not convinced that he was able to make it his own — which is probably why it remained on the cutting floor until Sam Phillips picked it up and took his final revenge on Johnny by releasing it.
Just as happy, but maybe a pinch more salacious, is ‘Down The Street To 301’, a semi-harmless, semi-immoral tale about a young boy having a summer love affair — the good thing is that Johnny’s subtle irony is back for this one, the bad thing is that the song (which was apparently the very last recording Cash had made for Sun) is really just a remake of ‘Ballad Of A Teenage Queen’, only from a male perspective this time. The only things that redeem the recording are the lack of the ghostly wailing lady (only the barbershop quartet harmonies remain in the background) and the presence of a smooth, joyful, uplifting piano part; but even so, this is definitely not a separate artistic entity from the first song.
Moving on, ‘Life Goes On’ might work for somebody as a (rather formulaic) consolation after a breakup ("If I see her anywhere / I hope she thinks that I don’t care" — yeah, sure), but for most people it will probably be just an inferior follow-up to ‘I Walk The Line’, with largely the same melody. ‘Port Of Lonely Hearts’ is notable only for having Johnny overdub himself — there’s a second vocal line acting as a counterpoint to the main melody, and, frankly speaking, the resulting effects are not at all pleasant. (Certainly Johnny was no Brian Wilson when it came to vocal overdubs). ‘My Treasure’ is less of a song than it is an unfinished minute-long snippet (just one verse and a chorus). ‘Oh Lonesome Me’ adds nothing to the Don Gibson original (except for another nice piano part) — we’d have to wait for Neil Young to slow that song down and fully exploit its potential to make you feel miserable. Finally, ‘The Story Of A Broken Heart’, credited to Sam Phillips himself (somewhat suspiciously, because the lyrics are 100% Cash in spirit), is probably the most genuine and unassailable thing on here, but so thoroughly unspectacular in all of its aspects that attempting to verbally climb its ideal smoothness is as fruitless as trying to write a thesis on the literary virtues of an aircraft safety card. "When we walked beneath the moon, our love was in bloom / Now we’re two lovers drifted apart". Uh, pretty sad.
Maybe I should actually take back what I said earlier and confess that it’s more exciting to listen to Johnny’s 10-minute long narrative about the Grand Canyon, interrupted or complemented by various nature sounds. At least it’s a bit of a novelty, and it serves an actual purpose (lulling you to sleep while thinking of yourself as possessed by the spirit of Davy Crockett or some other frontier hero). In any case, this is probably the last of those «quasi-posthumous» Sun albums I’m going to discuss — Phillips managed to issue a couple more in 1962–1964 before the barrel truly ran dry (All Aboard The Blue Train and Original Sun Sound), but they were even more seriously loaded with recycled material, and have even fewer points of additional interest.
Only Solitaire reviews: Johnny Cash
Goodness, I'm trying to wrap my head around this review. I can't say alot because I don't know these songs well, and maybe don't want to. Dam George, you get so intense, but that's why i read you. I love how you know the history. Another make my day: "we’d have to wait for Neil Young to slow that song down and fully exploit its potential to make you feel miserable". LOL x5. I'm just glad you are reviewing some of the old time country music I remember in the backroads of my memory. Born 1957.
Actually, I'm still stirring around in my head your last review of the Rolling Stones, such a great album. Hoping to comment with some common respect to your brilliant analysis.