SOLITARY MAN IS GOOD, SOLID WORK
With help from Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow, The Man in Black proves he still rocks
by Jessica Liese '01, Arts & Entertainment Editor
The Mount Holyoke News, November 9, 2000
Johnny Cash has been everywhere and seen everything. Over the course of a 46-year career, he's battled addictions and inner demons, written several books and braved what had been falsely diagnosed as a terminal illness. All the while, he's shaped the face of country music and rarely slowed down. Regardless of how you feel about country music, you have to respect a man with such an enduring career and influence. Released October 17, Cashs newest album, American III: Solitary Man, is a remarkable juxtaposition of the old and the new. Solitary Man lays bare the ties between modern popular music and the roots from which Cash's own work emerged.
Music lovers may cringe to recognize the album's title, derived from a classic Neil Diamond song. But Cash, ever-reminding us that he is no musical snob, makes this song his own and demonstrates the simple beauty that can be found in any genre of music. The variety of interesting covers on Solitary Man shouldn't surprise fans, who heard the Man in Black cover the likes of Beck and Soundgarden on his last album, 1997's Unchained. Solitary Man continues this tradition. Nowhere else will listeners find songs written by gothy alterna-pop artist Nick Cave and vaudeville performer Bert Williams on the same album. And even the most violent haters of Neil Diamond may find themselves pulled in by Cash's interpretation of Diamond's addictive guitar lick.
Cash also covers U2's "One" and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' hit "I Wont Back Down." The former is as bizarre as it sounds. It tries to be as daring as the dozens of covers of Cash's hit song "Ring of Fire," but in the end it only seems forced and anachronistic. This is not entirely Cash's fault, even if his 68-year-old voice does show its age throughout the ballad. The shortcomings of the cover also seem to come from the fact that the public has grown so accustomed to Bono's passionate (and, at times, maudlin) vocals. This quicker, more countrified version seems off-target. "I Wont Back Down," however, works surprisingly well as a stand-alone track and as an opener to the album. Petty's backing vocals add to the upbeat, earthy interpretation.
Petty isn't the only artist who has loaned his talents to this album. Cash is also joined in the studio by Sheryl Crow, Merle Haggard, his son John Carter Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash. The album also contains four new original songs by Cash. "Field of Diamonds" is a beautiful, introspective song with the potential to sit alongside such often-covered Cash classics as "I Walk the Line." Aided by heartfelt backing vocals from his wife and Sheryl Crow, the usually recalcitrant Cash delivers a surprisingly emotional performance. Another original, "Country Trash," is a tongue-in-cheek salute to the stereotypical pickup-truck-driving, rural-America-dwelling country music listener as well as a nod to Cash's Arkansas roots.
But Cash does not intend the stereotypical country music fan to be the only consumer of Solitary Man. He wants to spread these songs to as many people as will listen. "The song is the thing that matters," he says in the album's liner notes. And in the end, Cash's gravelly voice as it coasts over these songs and makes them his own demonstrates this in an eloquent, succinct way that nobody but the Man in Black could deliver.