Immortality
Johnny Cash, despite being dead for almost three years now, has the number one record on both the Pop and Country charts. Pretty darn impressive, I'd say.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In life, Johnny Cash was merely a legend. In death, he is proving immortal.
Almost three years after he died at the age of 71 after a decade of poor health, the country outlaw is the most popular artist in the United States, currently at No. 1 on the pop and country charts with an album of new material.
The album, "American V: A Hundred Highways," recorded in Cash's final months as he looked forward to reuniting with his late wife, June Carter Cash, sold 88,000 copies in the week ended July 9. It's his first chart-topper since 1969's live prison album "Johnny Cash at San Quentin."
It also marks the fifth — but not the final — installment in the "American Recordings" series, which resurrected the singer's career in the last dozen years of his life. The comeback was masterminded by rock producer Rick Rubin, who has already topped the album charts this summer with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dixie Chicks.
Cash and Rubin started work on the acoustic set the day they finished 2002's fourth volume, which featured one of the biggest hits of his career, a Grammy-winning cover of hard rock band Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." With a frail Cash sensing the end was near, he recorded 60 songs over eight months, often singing in an improvised bedroom studio at his home near Nashville.
My son is a big Johnny Cash fan ever since American IV came out. That's the one with the cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt. So I wanted to make sure to link to this article. It's quite a nice tribute to an immortal in American music. Incidentally, Rick Rubin may have another bit of immortality planned for Johnny Cash:
A more immediate possibility is another Billboard magazine advertisement ripping the country music world for its apathy toward Cash. After the overlooked 1996 album "Unchained" (U.S. sales to date: 152,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan) won the Grammy for best country album, Rubin controversially reproduced a famous photo of Cash hoisting a middle finger into the eye of the camera, and sarcastically thanked "the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support."
"So much of the idea of that ad was really for Johnny's entertainment," Rubin recalled. "It's a great idea, having the No. 1 album and the No. 1 country album, it's a great time for a f— you from Johnny Cash!"
I don't think it's really necessary. Johnny's laughing somewhere, anyway.
By FormerRighty, Tuesday, 18 July , 2006 @ 9:55 am
From “Man in Black”:
I wear black for the poor and beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crimes
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.
Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,
But jut so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought ’a be a Man in Black.
I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.