Look Again to the Wind Cash Johnny
A Special Release Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Cash's Landmark Album
Look Once more To The Wind: Johnny Cash'south Biting Tears Revisited
Of all the dozens of albums released pastJohnny Cash during his nearly half-century career, 1964'sBitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian was among the closest to the artist'southward eye. A concept album focusing on the mistreatment and marginalization of the Native American people throughout the history ofthe United States, its eight songs—amongst them "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," a #3 hit unmarried for Cash on theBillboard country chart—spoke in frank and poetic language of the hardships and intolerance they endured.
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At present, 50 years subsequently it was recorded, a collective of top Americana artists has come up together to reimagine and update these songs that meant so much to Cash, who died in 2003.Look Again To The Air current: Johnny Cash'southward Bitter Tears Revisited (Sony Music Masterworks,August 19), produced byJoe Henry (Bonnie Raitt,Aaron Neville), features American music giantsKris Kristofferson,Emmylou Harris,Steve Earle,Beak Miller,Gillian Welch andDavid Rawlings, andNorman and Nancy Blake, equally well every bit up-and-comers the Milk Carton Kids andRhiannon Giddens, interpreting the music ofBitter Tears for a new generation. Equally his project was for Cash, the new collection is a labor of love with a strong sense of purpose fueling its creation.
"Prior toBitter Tears, the conversation almost Native American rights had not really been had," says Henry, "and at a very significant moment in his trajectory,Johnny Cash was willing to depict a line and insist that this be considered a human rights result, alongside the civil rights issue that was coming to fruition in 1964. But he also felt that the tape had never been heard, and so in that location'southward a existent sense that we're being asked to carry it forrard."
Bitter Tears, widely acknowledged for decades as one of Cash's greatest artistic achievements, did non realize its stature every bit a landmark recording easily and chop-chop. At the time that Cash proposed the album, he was met with a great deal of resistance from his record characterization. They felt that a song bike revolving around the Native American struggle as perpetrated by the white human took him too far afield of the land mainstream and Cash's cadre audience. Cash still released the album and although it did non perform every bit well every bit he had hoped, he remained extremely proud of the album throughout his life.
Ironically, at the same time that his ain characterization was balking because information technology felt he would alienate the land audience with his Native American tales, Greenbacks was finding a new set of admirers amidst the burgeoning folk music oversupply that had recently fabricated stars of Bob Dylan,Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. Greenbacks's debut operation of "Ira Hayes" at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had earned him rave reviews. His entreatment was undeniably expanding across the state audience, and for those who did connect withBitter Tears, amidst them a 17-year-one-time aspiring singer-songwriter namedEmmylou Harris, its music was revelatory and important. "The record was a seminal work for her as a teenager," says Henry. "She bought the album brand new and realized at that moment thatJohnny Cash was a folk singer, non a state singer, and was involving himself politically and socially in a way that she had identified with the great folk singers at that moment."
Henry's awareness of Harris' amore forBiting Tears led him to invite her to contribute toAwait Again To The Current of air:Johnny Cash'sBitter Tears Revisited. Post-obit the ballsy, nine-minute album-opener "Every bit Long as the Grass Shall Grow," written past Peter La Farge—a folk vocaliser-songwriter with Native American bloodlines who Cash had befriended—and sung here by Welch and Rawlings, Harris takes the lead vocal on the Cash-penned "Apache Tears," which also features sweet, close harmonies by the Milk Carton Kids, the duo comprisingKenneth Pattengale andJoey Ryan. For Henry, advisedly matching creative person to song was integral to the integrity ofLook Again To The Wind. For some of the tracks, that process required a neat bargain of consideration. Just when information technology came to deciding who would interpret "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," Henry quickly zeroed in on Kristofferson.
Another of five songs on the original album written by La Farge, "The Ballad ofIra Hayes" is based on the true story ofIra Hamilton Hayes, a Pima Indian who was i of the six Marines seen raising the flag at Iwo Jima in an iconic World War II photograph. Hayes' moment of glory was followed upon his return to civilian life with prejudice and alcoholism—Cash, moved by Hayes' story and La Farge's recounting of information technology, vowed to tape the song. When planning outWait Again To The Wind, Henry knew that simply a few living singers could deliver the song the mode he wanted to hear it. He chosen Kristofferson, utilizing Rawlings and Welch to sing background.
"I wanted somebody whose human relationship withJohnny Cash was not simply musical but personal," he says. "I'd worked with Kris on a couple of other things and I thought why not ask? Who else has a voice with that kind of power and authority?" That same sense of intuition guided Henry to choose the other participants and the material they would render. For La Farge's "Custer," the album's tertiary song, the producer knew instinctively thatSteve Earle was the right man for the task. "Steve is an upstart, and there are very few people I can imagine working right now who could evangelize a vocal that is that pointed in that item way and exercise it authentically without cowering from it or making it experience a little too curvation," Henry says. "He really could embody the kind of swagger that that song insists upon."
Similarly, Henry choseNancy Blake (with Harris and Welch on backing vocals) for the Cash-written "The Talking Leaves,"Norman Blake to sing "Drums," the Milk Carton Kids to lead "White Girl" (both of those authored by La Farge) and the powerhouse vocalistRhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the original album's finale, "The Vanishing Race," written past Greenbacks's good friendJohnny Horton. To eternalize the anthology (the original, typical of mid-'60s vinyl LPs, ran just over a half hour), Henry fills out the track list ofLook Once more To The Air current with reprises of "Apache Tears" and "As Long As the Grass Shall Abound"—both sung past Welch and Rawlings—and ends the set with the championship track, a La Farge melody that did not appear on the originalJohnny Cash album but instead on the songwriter's own 1963 releaseAs Long as the Grass Shall Grow: Peter La Farge Sings Of The Indians. Here it's sung pastPecker Miller, withSam Bush providing mandolin andDennis Crouch upright bass, a fine and fitting coda to the collection.
From the offset, Henry looked at the project equally one that would require great personal commitment and responsibility on his ain role. Approached as potential producer of the project by the man who first envisioned information technology, Sony Music Masterworks' Senior Vice PresidentChuck Mitchell (who'd been in conversations with Antonino D'Ambrosio, author ofA Heartbeat and a Guitar, a book virtually the making ofBitter Tears), Henry immediately understood the importance of the assignment. "Johnny Greenbacks was my get-go musical hero and I feel a profound debt to him as an artist, and as a courageous 1," he says. "How could I say no to that?"
He also realized that theBitter Tears anthology held a special place in Greenbacks's catechism, and that in many means the issues it raised withal resonate today—this had to be credible in the new versions. "Mr. Cash knew that if he took this on, even if his point of view was not adopted, he had the ability to be heard," Henry says.
The anthology was recorded in three sessions: the beginning 2 inLos Angeles andNashville and, lastly, ane at the Cash Motel, in Greenbacks's hometown ofHendersonville, Tennessee, whereBill Miller cut his contribution. Providing the instrumental bankroll for most of the album areGreg Leisz (steel guitar, guitars), Keefus Ciancia (keyboards),Patrick Warren (keyboards for the L.A. sessions),Jay Bellerose (drums) andDave Piltch (bass).
TRACKLIST:
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Equally Long every bit the Grass Shall Abound – feat.Gillian Welch &David Rawlings
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Apache Tears – feat.Emmylou Harris westward/The Milk Carton Kids
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Custer – feat.Steve Earle w/The Milk Carton Kids
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The Talking Leaves – feat.Nancy Blake westward/Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings
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The Ballad ofIra Hayes – feat.Kris Kristofferson w/Gillian Welch &David Rawlings
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Drums – feat.Norman Blake west/Nancy Blake,Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &David Rawlings
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Apache Tears (Reprise) – feat.Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings
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White Daughter – feat. The Milk Carton Kids
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The Vanishing Race – feat.Rhiannon Giddens
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As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (Reprise) – feat.Nancy Blake,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings
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Await Once more to The Current of air – feat. Bill Miller
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Source: http://billmiller.co/look-again-to-the-wind/
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