The late great country star JOHNNY CASH released his
classic I WALK THE LINE on 1 May 1956, 68 years ago
today.
It was his first No.1 on the US Billboard country charts. It remained on the charts for over 43 weeks. Inspired by the backward playback of guitar runs on his tape recorder, the man in black used the technique to produce the unique chord progression of the song. It also includes Cash’s distinctive “boom-chicka-boom” sound, created by putting a dollar bill in the neck of his guitar.
British pop titans PULP returned this year with their 8th LP
baptized More, their 1st in 24 years (lazy common people).
Now they have shared an almost full spoken-word version – frontman Jarvis Cocker sounds somehow scary – ofJohnny Cash‘s 2002 title track THE MAN’S COMES AROUND, from his American IV: The Man Comes
Around album.
It was especially recorded for British TV drama series The Hack,
which documents the 2011 phone hacking scandal that led to
the closing of the gutter newspaper The News of the World.
The songs were recorded during the same sessions as American V: A Hundred Highways (2006), in the final months of Cash‘s life. His voice sounds weakened and vulnerable at
times.
The LP peaked at #3 on the US Billboard Chart, selling 54,000 copies in its first week. American VI was the first release in the American Recordings series to contain no re-recordings of previously released songs.
The Times (UK) said: “Most soulful performances on
American VI are invested in Nashville standards”
Artist: T BONE BURNETT Who: Legendary American songsmith and lauded producer who worked
with many greats (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, John Mellencamp and many
more) and scored movie soundtracks all through his long career.
LET THE FLOWERS GROW
The song was originally written by Boy George with its initial message being
“one of
personal acceptance about being gay. As the song developed, it took on a more expansive and universal scope with its lyrics extending beyond sexuality and embracing race, gender, creed and religion.”
Epic.
Boy George – Peter Murphy
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artist: PETER PERRETT Who: Former frontman of legendary British new
wavers The Only Ones (1976–1982, 2007–2017)
“The song incorporates themes of longing and desperation I felt in my own
life at the time that found a home in anecdotes of the desert and its characters
experiencing these feelings for reasons far removed from my reality.”
Artists: THE GLASS HOURS Who: American songwriters Brad Armstrong and Megan Barbera.
Their music blurs between Sunday afternoon country-folk and
the golden age of the 1970s.
“It’s about that someone you’ll never be with and that you allow to remain
inside you as a perfect unspoiled thing, yet still you measure and hold your
real relationship up against it. It’s a dream, an illusion, an unfair fantasy.
Nothing and therefore able to be perfect.”
JOHNNY CASH is the first musician who gets a place in the famous hall with
a statue created by Little Rock sculptor Kevin Kresse. It depicts him with a guitar
and a Bible.
Today 55 years ago, on 24 August 1969, the late outlaw JOHNNY CASH,
one of the outstanding singer-songwriters/wordsmiths of all time released
his notorious live prison album AT SAN QUENTIN
A longplayer recorded at San Quentin State Prison on 24th February of that
same year. The prison was located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated
town of San Quentin in Marin County, California.
It was his 31st overall album. It went triple platinum in the US over the years.
He played and recorded in 3 other prisons afterward. The iconic photo on the
front sleeve is by Jim Marshall.
The most famous and masterly song (actually written by humorist/poet Shel Silverstein)
is without a shadow of a doubt A Boy Named Sue. That very live version became his greatest hit single ever. Here’s that marvellous story of a that boy.
Band: KASABIAN Who: Veteran rockers from Leicester, UK.
One of the best bands of the past 25 years,
on record and on stage, in my book.
Album: HAPPENINGS
Their 8th one, also their
8th number one in the UK.
TUTV: Since former frontman Tom Meighan left the group in 2020, Kasabian‘s wild drugs-fueled hedonistic days are over. Well, sort of. Yes, all 10 songs are disco-dance spiced stompers, but not the Taylor Swift way. Many decibels and pyrotechnics are still involved like on Call, How Far Will You Go, and Hello of It.
Half of the tracks are tailor-made for big festivals, stadiums, and other mammoth happenings where fans want to forget the daily rat race for a while. As Serge puts
it : “Art, for me, is relaxation – I panic when I’m not doing it.”.
Band: EX-HYENA (Boston, MA) Who: The musical project of Bo Barringer and Reuben Bettsak that started in 2020, surfacing through the haze of a global pandemic and illuminated by the city’s darkest corners.
Press info: A Kiss of the Mind skillfully captures the trademark Ex-Hyena combination of dark electronic, post-punk attitude mixed with the moody aura of the underground ‘80s
and a future-noir vision. But the record finds the project exploring a wider sonic landscape, with sprinkles of synth-pop, shoegaze, industrial, psychedelic, soul, trip-hop, Britpop, and more filtered through the Ex-Hyena sound lens, where heavy beats and razorsharp synths cascade through a hall of mirrors underneath a dual vocal melody attack.
Bettsak: “These songs are a bit longer and more expansive than the previous songs. There
was a bit more experimentation, and throwing lots of styles into the fold. I think we operate better when we don’t set any strict rules on genres, etc. We let the music, and songs guide us.”
TUTV: Once again Ex-Heyna take you on an EBM journey through the Apocalyptic war
times we live in. Surely, you can dance, move and groove to their new trippy pieces of orchestral manoeuvres in the dark, but the shadowy tone and timbre of this new record resonate like a fitting soundtrack for the ongoing disturbing turmoil we experience.
Expect a versatile mix of ambient vibes, wayward dynamics à la Aphex Twin, and early Human League eurhythmics all served with a twilight vocality. No rest for the wicked. We also need dance music in grim times. Enter A Kiss Of The Mind.
The late great country icon JOHNNY CASH recorded
an LP’s worth of self-penned songs in 1993 that weren’t
released until now.
TUTV: It’s always an aural pleasure to hear Cash‘s heart-and-soul warming Americana voice. Whether it’s a romantic ballad, a jaunty country tune or a
(rare) rocker his vocals/phrasing both stir and calm down my mind.
All 11 songs at play here are definitely no leftovers from some studio sessions.
Each track charms and endears. Imagine sitting on a swing chair on a cosy porch surrounded by green trees and a soft sun, with a bottle of red wine at hand and
the masterly Songwriter Johnny Cash as your musical friend.
Band: LOSSLINE Who: Manchester-based singer/songwriter tandem, Jack and Adam,
who look around, inside and outside, every day and write songs about
it, mostly sad songs.
“Our third album came about through us changing the way we write. Lots of the songs
were written as instrumentals and then the vocals were thought about afterwards. We
still write as a duo but we’re in the same room less and less.
In terms of themes it draws a lot from our day to day experiences. Feeling like we’re getting
a bit old to be going out. Finding the daily grind to be wearing us down. The joys and difficulties of having children. We drew a lot of inspiration from the work of Bill Ryder Jones who uses melody and time changes beautifully to create really strong emotional songs.”
TUTV: These two Manchester songwriters make you reach for your favorite drink,
make you dim the lights, make you go and sit down in your lazy chair, and make
you relax to melancholic, day-and-night-dreams with sepia-colored candlelight
vocals, but this time it happens a bit less than before. Mind you, they do not
start to rock out like mad.
On Again they resonate like weirdo Mark Oliver Everett and his band Eels and on
standout pearls I Can’t See Pass Monday, Heavy Rain and Sticking Point they cause goosebumps with affecting choir-like orchestrations, inspired as they say by intimate songsmith Bill Ryder-Jones, co-founder of Liverpool‘s romantic musers The Coral.
Listen to his heavy-hearted gem This Can’t Go On and you’ll know what they and
I mean. And as I mentioned before famous crooners The National and the softest
moments of The War On Drugs are floating around here and there too on this
splendid Lossline album 3.
Artists: POEJI Who: German drummer Simon Popp and jazz-loving, Mongolia-born singer/musician Enji. Both were/are involved in several solo, as well as collaborative projects.
The first result of their collaboration. Nant is music without borders or constraints, translated in various languages, such as the Slovenian word for ‘sing’ or the rough Japanese translation to ‘poetry’, whilst the album title is an old Welsh word for a stream or a valley. Parts of Enji’s vocals on the record are sung in her native Mongolian, whilst Simon Popp explores melody via various tuned percussion from around the world. They have created a truly universal album, pulling inspiration from German avant-garde, dub, downtempo and musique concrete.
Popp: “Nant is our shared exploration, merging our diverse backgrounds into an unconventional yet distinctive soundscape. It’s a deeply personal journey through
unique, atmospheric sounds that unite our individual worlds.”
Enji: “If this record takes you to places where you encounter “a quiet inner speech,” “unexpected messages,” or thoughts of “nothing to say, let the music speak,” then perhaps that’s precisely what we’ve been aiming for.”
TUTV: I never heard of both artists before, but I’m thrilled that I discovered them recently.
The fruit of their first musical partnership is special, nothing to do with the modern-day mainstream music.
Two things came to mind while listening to Nant for the first time. The title of Simon
and Garfunkel‘s majestic 1965 hit Sound Of Silence and the superb, romantic 2003
movie Lost In Translation.
Meditation, relaxation, peacefulness, atmospheric inventiveness and mind-massage
are the keywords here. Nant is an ideal sonic companion for soothing evenings, far
away from the busy reality we experience every single day.
