July 12, 2006

Johnny Cash Is #1

The Man In Black has his first chart-topping album since 1969's Johnny Cash At San Quentin. (Take that High School Musical!)

This Nick Cave cover's from III, not the new A Hundred Highways, but it's one of my faves from the American series.

Johnny Cash - "The Mercy Seat" (MP3)

Who d'ya think selected all the alt-rock songs Cash covered in the last decade? Rubin? I just have a hard time picturing Johnny rocking out to Violator.

Posted at 4:02 PM in MP3

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8 Comments

I picture Rubin giving Cash a few sweet mixtapes, with Cash picking out the ones he liked. My favorites have been Loudon Wainwright's "The Man Who Couldn't Cry," Beck's "Rowboat," and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's "I See a Darkness." Some of the covers have seemed really sincere, while others (like his cover of U2's "One") came off as forced and gimmicky.

Posted by: fearlessWeaver at 07/12/06 4:20 PM | Reply
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The Mercy Seat... nice pick, one of my favs too. It's astounding how Cash owned these covers, like they were written for him and him alone.

Posted by: N at 07/12/06 4:46 PM | Reply
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That's pretty much how it went I think. If my memory serves me correctly, Rubin has said in interviews that he would send Johnny mixtapes, like hundreds and hundreds of songs, and the man would pick out ones he wanted to try. That's at least how they came up with many of them.

But hey, The Man in Black always had fairly diverse tastes. Brought Dylan and Neil Young on the Johnny Cash Show back in the day, after all.

Great to see him back on top of the charts.

Posted by: J at 07/12/06 4:51 PM | Reply
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http://www.toptown.com/hp/66/BILLBOARDAD314.JPG

Posted by: J at 07/12/06 4:55 PM | Reply
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Yeah, Rubin talked one time about how hard it was for him to get Johnny to do Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage" and he eventually got Dave Navarro to work out a whole different arrangement that sounded totally different before Johnny said yes.

Posted by: Stephen at 07/12/06 7:17 PM | Reply
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Wait, Dave Navarro is actually musical? I thought he was the Courtney Love of music.

http://www.musictimes.com.au

Posted by: Music Times at 07/12/06 8:16 PM | Reply
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Yay! 'Tis no surprise though, since Johnny Cash owns the earth.

Posted by: a is for applebits at 07/12/06 11:31 PM | Reply
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I've really enjoyed this set quite a bit. I think the best song on the current disc is the cover of Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds." It's really powerful... something about the way he sings the lines "But our good times all are gone / and I'm bound for moving on," I think.

Posted by: Nate at 07/12/06 11:38 PM | Reply
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