Send "Johnny Cash " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Ew |
 Producer Rick Rubin really did save the best for last. There are none of the folk-alt-rock karaoke selections of previous American discs on American VI: Ain't No Grave, just 10 wholly appropriate picks that speak to the gravity of Johnny Cash's situation and his joy in both life and death. His voice sounds more vulnerable, less "iconic," more human. Is he the first singer whose vocals actually got better on his veritable deathbed? A...full text |
| Chicagotribune |
| In the final decade of his life, Johnny Cash revived his career by collaborating with producer Rick Rubin on a series of recordings that yielded five studio albums and a box set – one of the great final chapters authored by any pop icon in the last half-century. Now, more than six years after Cash’s death in 2003, 10 more songs from those sessions have been collected on “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” (American Recordings/Lost Highway). Skepticism would be in order, given that the legacies of artists from Elvis Presley to Tupac Shakur have been marred by countless ill-considered, posthumous releases. That is not the case with “VI.” Cash was determined to record as much as possible soon after the love of his life, June Carter Cash, died in May 2003. Over the next four months until his own death in September, the singer hunkered down with Rubin at Cash’s home studio in Tennessee, working feverishly against time and his own declining health. Rubin helped make Cash relevant again in the ‘90s by serving as a low-key cheerleader and facilitator; he helped pick the songs and the musicians for each of Cash’s “American” recordings. He recorded Cash in small-group settings, an approach that only enhanced the singer’s gravelly conviction. On his last recordings, Cash wore his mortality like one of his black suits, with a comfortable dignity. In the traditions he grew up with – country, gospel, blues – death was a subject that came up frequently; serious yet matter of fact. It cloaked Cash’s first posthumous studio album, the 2006 release “American V: A Hundred Highways.” That record was a difficult listen; his voice sounded like a shipwreck, echoing Billie Holiday’s audible deterioration on her penultimate album, “Lady in Satin,” or the ravaged croon of jazz trumpeter Chet Baker in his final years. Death remains the big subject on “VI,” and Rubin magnifies the drama. The music casts long shadows, packed with foreboding. But Cash’s voice isn’t particularly morbid or self-pitying. Instead, it’s tinged by longing -- not for what he’s leaving behind, but for what’s next. Just as he explored new sounds until the day he died, Cash paints death not as an end, but as the start of his next road trip. ...full text |
| Allmusic |
| Released for the occasion of Johnny Cash's 78th birthday, American VI: Ain't No Grave is the final installment in the collaboration between Cash and Rick Rubin that began with 1994’s American Recordings. These ten songs were cut during the same sessions for American V: A Hundred Highways. Guitarists Mike Campbell, Matt Sweeney, Smokey Hormel, and Benmont Tench on keyboards were present, as were other musicians. June Carter Cash died during routine surgery during these sessions. Cash, though grief stricken and with full knowledge that he too was dying due to complications from Parkinson’s disease, worked as often as his health would allow. He died three months after these songs were recorded. Ain't No Grave is an elegiac and deeply spiritual album, a formal goodbye without regret from a man and an artist of almost mythic stature. The song selection is rooted in the Americana, folk, country, and gospel traditions. There is an excellent reading of Tom Paxton's “Wonder Where I’m Bound” that doesn’t feel as lost as the original, but more a statement after reflecting on a life fully lived. Likewise his version of Sheryl Crow's “Redemption Day” sums up Cash’s own long commitment to social justice, and the need for individual accountability; its statement of hope is underscored here not as a dream, but as a conviction. Kris Kristofferson's “For the Good Times” begins with the words: “Don’t look so sad, I know it’s over/But life goes on/And this ole world will keep on turning.” It offers a portrait of the dignity and grace Cash performed with all his life. “I Corinthian’s 15:55” is his last self-penned song, a sweet, country-gospel melody that echoes far beyond the margins of contemporary music to an earlier time, and looks at the future with unshakable faith. The title track is a country-gospel-blues by Brother Claude Ely — it’s a fierce showdown with the Reaper, with the singer winning it hands down. There are excellent covers of Bob Nolan's “Cool Water,” a song Cash often sang live that expresses empathy for the downtrodden, and “Satisfied Mind,” written by Jack Rhodes and Red Hayes, played on a lone acoustic guitar, which dispenses the truth of earthly life into two-minutes-and-forty-eight seconds. Ed McCurdy's “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” is a true anti-war song that serves as a testimonial. The album’s final cut is Queen Liliuokalani's traditional Hawaiian ballad “Aloha Oe,” one of the sweetest, most affectionate leaving songs ever written. And Cash’s version? It’s devastatingly beautiful; to the point of tears. If there were any justice, Ain't No Grave would be the last album released under Cash’s name. It is not only a compelling contribution to his legacy, but an offering that closes the historic American Recordings series with the same stamp of quality that began it....full text |
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