Down Country

I love Johnny Cash.

Now that we have that out of the way…his music is just so good. Actually let me rephrase that. I’m not sure it’s all that good. All his songs sound the same. I’m in the middle of one of his biographies and he mentions that. Johnny knew his songs were all the same, and he made mention of the fact that “it was all we knew how to play in the early days and then later on, we just didn’t make it a priority to learn something new.”

Obviously it worked for Johnny Cash - something was working anyway, because a lot of people love his music and I’m included in that number. Like I said, I’m not struck by the technical brilliance of his music because that’s not an element of what he produced. Maybe I just love the simplicity, the down-home feel, the naked truths in so many of his songs. You can feel Johnny coming through his music; he had an uncanny ability to connect with people with one little song. It was something that came natural to him.

Recently, a new artist came out with a song called Johnny and June. Heidi Newfield sings it, and - for me - it is an amazing song. She sings about the love between Johnny and June Cash. It’s not sappy or mushy…it’s just - real. If you give it a chance, it’ll do something to you.

And if you give Johnny Cash a chance, he’ll do something to you too. Read his biographies. If you’re not into reading, watch Walk the Line. For a documentary of someone so widely-known as Johnny, it was suprisingly superb. Really quite excellent. I’m telling you, it’s worth it.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS