One more from the man they call Cash

American V: A Hundred Highways (Johnny Cash): Johnny died before this album was completed. Though the vocals were done, final instrumentation had not been recorded. To some controversy, Rick Rubin (producer of the entire American series) decided to complete the record after Johnny's death. Like the rest of the American series, there are originals, covers, and re-recordings on this album. Many of the songs have a haunting quality, with lyrics that seem to foreshadow the end of the Man in Black's time on this earth. In particular, Like the 309 (the last song Johnny ever wrote), deals with death very frankly.

I first heard this record while listening to KRVS (local public radio station). I don't recall the show, but they played most of the record. Coincidentally, I was sitting, with Dana, Ellie, and our Siamese cat Zydeco on the eve of his death, with Dana and I crying (Ellie was too little to understand what was happening). Zydeco had been very ill, and we had been nursing his health for a couple of years. We had finally worked up the nerve to ask the vet if putting him to sleep was an option - he replied that most wouldn't have done as much as we had done. So, it was scheduled. The next morning, I was to drop Zydeco off at the vet for the last time. I picked him up a short time after and buried him in the woods behind our backyard. To this day I have a hard time listening to American V without having tears well up. That doesn't mean I don't listen to it. It's an incredible statement from an incredible man. Dana and I got Zydeco just before we were married in 1996. He died in the summer of 2006. We haven't had another pet since.

Back to Johnny telegraphing his death - I think people know when their time is coming. Listening to this record, it's hard to argue Johnny didn't know. My grandmother knew her time was coming, as did my grandfather. When my grandfather passed, my grandmother was worried about paying bills and such, because he always did that. When she began to look into these things, she found he had paid most accounts in advance by a few months, giving her time to get settled. They were not wealthy, and paying in advance was not his custom. When my grandmother passed, she had been hospitalized briefly for pneumonia. No one thought it life-threatening, though she passed quickly. When my father and his sister went to house to collect some things, they found she had laid out all her important papers (insurance and such) on the kitchen table. People know.

This record is just plain excellent. I for one am glad it was released. There is beautiful cello work in more than one track (maybe this is a Rick Rubin thing), which we know I'm a sucker for. The record is full of Johnny's typically sparse arrangements - less is more (though, to quote Frank Lloyd Wright: Less is only more where more is no good). Though the final interpretations were Rick's and the musicians', not Johnny's, they still had his already recorded vocals to work with.