by Steve Turner
The years 1992 and 1993 marked the beginning of what Cash would later call his third career, or his second comeback. His first career started with "Hey! Porter" in 1955, and Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison signified his first comeback in 1968. Comfortable and enjoying himself in the 1980s, his "best o f album The Mercury Years, boasts some terrific tracks recorded between 1987 and 1991, including "Cat's in the Cradle," "Sixteen Tons," and "I'd Rather Have You." But he wasn't jumping any artistic hurdles. Neither was he winning over a new generation of listeners as Roy Orbison did with his 1988 album Mystery Girl. Cash had yet to make his comeback album.
He'd reached the point where people admired him more for his past achievements than for his present output. He received a Living Legends Award at the Grammy Awards ceremony (1991) and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992) at a time when he was playing small venues like Roadie's Roadhouse in Mississauga, Ontario, and Toad's Place at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Only with the Highwaymen did he now play the large arenas and have an impact on the charts. "Highwayman" had topped the country singles charts, and both Highwayman albums had made it into the Top 100 of the Billboard charts. After a second U.S. tour in 1990, the group toured Australia and New Zealand in 1991 and then Europe in 1992.
Cash's dwindling status coupled with the frustrations of touring with a variety of health problems, may have clouded his judgment when it came time to commit to Cash Country, a planned thirty-five-million-dollar entertainment complex in Branson, Missouri. The music theme park, spread over one hundred acres, would include three theaters, a horse arena, a go-cart track, an amusement park, a water park, an auction house, a Cash museum, a thirty-five-unit hotel, three motels, and a twenty-thousand-square-foot shopping mall.
The guaranteed seventy-five nights a year in one of the twenty-five-hundred-seat theaters appealed to Cash, and Branson was only four hundred miles from Nashville. Veterans Roy Clark and Mel Tillis already had long seasons in Branson. "It's not running away from Nashville," said Lou Robin. "It's just part of the road activity he does one hundred days a year. There comes a time after thirty-six years that you look for an easier way to do it. In Branson we'll work five days at a time, essentially every other week. The rest of the time we'll be doing other things."
Cash never put any money into the project being designed and built by California property developer David Green, but he did allow his name to be used and was promised that he and June would be given some creative input. Cash wanted one of the theaters to be devoted to gospel music, and June had ideas about developing shows for children. The museum would be modeled on the existing Cash Museum at House of Cash (which opened in March 1979 at a cost of ten million dollars) and would include separate sections devoted to different aspects of Cash's life, from music and history, to patriotism and Americana, to causes like prisons, guns, and Native Americans. With the opening date scheduled for May 1992, it looked like the ideal way for Cash to celebrate his sixtieth birthday.
But Cash Country didn't open on May 1,1992, with a headline show by Johnny Cash as announced. By the spring, cash-flow problems forced the builders to stop work. November found David Green in a Springfield, Missouri, bankruptcy court where the judge approved a $4.1 million sale of the half-completed theater.
The failure of Cash Country drastically altered the shape of the final decade of Cash's career. Had it taken off, he may well not have embarked on the European tour in January 1993 that took him to Dublin on February 8. If he hadn't gone to Dublin, he wouldn't have sung on a track for U2's album Zooropa, which, as time would tell, became a turning point in his career.
Although a monumental figure assured his place in the history of twentieth-century popular music, it had been years since Cash had been considered hip. Not since 1968 to 1970, when he was cutting the prison albums and introducing people like Bob Dylan, James Taylor, and Joni Mitchell to the television viewing public, had his influence really mattered.
Then, starting in 1988, a reevaluation began to take place. The first indication was a Johnny Cash tribute album made in Britain to raise money for an AIDS charity. 'Til Things Are Brighter, produced by Mark Riley and Jon Langford for Red Rhino Records, featured members of some of Britain's more avantgarde post-punk bands—That Petrol Emotion, Cabaret Voltaire, the Mekons, the Triffids, and Soft Cell. It was a fascinating link between Cash and the world of alternative rock. Mark Riley explained: "Generally speaking, for the young audience in Britain, the country and western singers are pretty much figures of fun. But Johnny Cash comes across as this cool dude who plays in prisons and wears black. Everybody was instantly keen to do it."
That same year Cash met Bono, who came to Hendersonville during a driving trip across America with U2 bass player Adam Clayton. When they sat down for a meal, Cash intoned a long and elaborate grace, thanking God for his wonderful provisions and asking him to bless the food to their bodies. Then he opened his eyes, winked at Bono, and said, "Sure do miss the drugs though." The demonstration of piety coupled with the admission of weakness endeared Cash to the young Irish musicians. In May 1989 Cash recalled the meeting: "We sat around and played some songs afterwards and then we started writing a song together ["Ellis Island," which was never completed]. We were going to finish it off by fax, but that didn't work out. I hope to go and see him when I get to Dublin."
The early period of Sun Records fascinated Bono. He was interested in knowing the origins of rock-'n'-roll and was also intrigued by the theological struggles of people like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis as they fought to reconcile this deeply sensual music with their Pentecostal understanding of Christianity. Rock-'n'-roll encouraged rebellion, abandon, pride, and self-indulgence. Jesus Christ preached obedience, self-control, humility, and sacrifice. Was reconciliation possible?
Of all the Sun Records artists, Cash was the one closest in spirit to U2. Cash was the one who'd developed a social conscience, placing his music at the service of the downtrodden and marginalized. He was the one unafraid to explore the darkness within himself. He was the one to incorporate spiritual material into his non-gospel albums. He was also the one to explore folk, blues, gospel, and country roots. For a contemporary band attracted to rock-'n'-roll, the teachings of Jesus, and political justice, Cash was a unique example.
"Johnny Cash was a saint who preferred the company of sinners," says Bono. "It's an amazing thing. I've seen the Bible he read from. I've seen his life from various different quarters, and what I was left with was the feeling that I'd met some one with the dignity of an age we don't know. I feel it's as though I'm reading about Jacob or Moses. He was so not twentieth century. He was a mythical figure. I don't know how that happens. Elvis, Johnny Cash—they were mythical figures and they lived mythical lives."
In February 1993, when Cash was in Dublin to play a concert with Kris Kristofferson, Bono invited him to Windmill Studios, where the band was recording with producer Brian Eno. As Cash later remembered it, they told him they were recording a track that was part of an experimental music project. The day before, Bono had written the words to a song he was calling "The Preacher" (it later became "Wanderlust" and finally "The Wanderer"). It was inspired by the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, in which the unnamed narrator systematically explores all avenues of fulfillment before concluding that everything is worthless unless people remember their Creator.
"Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books," says Bono. "It's a book about a character who wants to find out why he's alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge. He tries wealth. He tries experience. He tries everything. You hurry to the end of the book to find out why, and it says, 'It's good to work,' 'Remember your Creator.' In a way, it's such a letdown. Yet it isn't. There's something of Johnny Cash in that."
Cash added the necessary gravity to the "The Wanderer." When he intoned the lines "I went out there / In search of experience / To taste and to touch / And to feel as much / As a man can / Before he repents" he seemed to sum up a large part of his own life.
"It's like a post-apocalyptic search," said Cash. "It's the search for three important things: God, that woman, and myself." Bono instinctively spotted one of Johnny Cash's unique talents. "He's got this great voice which loves certain words," he said. "I just wrote those words for him."
Cash returned home assuming the track would never be used, but Bono called to tell him that it would be the final track on Zooropa. A Johnny Cash track on a U2 album would expose him to a totally new audience—U2 was the biggest band in the world at the time. The following year, Zooropa became a number-one album in both Britain and the U.S., selling more than seven million copies worldwide. Johnny Cash was, once again, hip.
12
American Recordings
ON FEBRUARY 27, 1993, two weeks after flying home from Dublin, Cash played the Rhythm Cafe, a small dinner theater in Santa Ana, California. After the show he met with a thirty-year-old man with long dark hair and a thick beard down to his chest who said that he was interested in producing him. The man was Rick Rubin, owner of Def American Records.
It's unlikely that Cash would have known any of the artists Rubin had produced up to that point. He wouldn't have heard rap acts like LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, or Run DMC, heavy-metal acts like Slayer or Wolfsbane, or even the politically incorrect comedian Andrew Dice Clay. The Red Hot Chili Peppers might have rung a bell, but indistinctly. Nevertheless, Cash was intrigued to know what this guy, whom he thought looked like a wino, imagined he could do for his career.
Although he now based in Los Angeles, Rubin was from Long Island, and his musical roots were as far removed from Cash's as it was possible to imagine. He liked hard, aggressive metal—AC/DC and Led Zeppelin had been his favorite boyhood bands. He formed his first record label, Def Jam, with rap impresario Russell Simmons, and they specialized in synthesizing elements of heavy metal with elements of rap, the most commercially successful result being the single "Walk This Way" that paired Aerosmith with Run DMC.
Rubin had produced the multiplatinum albums Licensed to Ill for the Beastie Boys, Raisin' Hell for Run DMC, Mack Daddy by Sir Mixalot, and BloodSugarSexMagik for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as the platinum albums Reign in Blood for Slayer and Electric for the Cult. Wealthy and celebrated, he was looking for a fresh challenge. He'd even specifically entertained the idea of finding a great artist, without a recent smash album, to revitalize.
Whenever he thought about great artists, Rubin kept coming back to Johnny Cash, whom he considered a primal force with a currently uninspired career. Although Cash's style of music differed from anything he'd produced so far, it had common elements. Rap and heavy metal, like country, had been born on the other side of the tracks and dealt with the life experiences of the crushed and frustrated. Both genres were rife with songs about drugs and alcohol, guns and knives, light and darkness, lost love and jail.
"I have always been drawn to things that are edgy and extreme," says Rubin. "Johnny Cash was always an outlaw figure who didn't fit in anywhere. He was looked upon as a country artist, but I don't think that country people ever totally embraced him. He was an outsider, and I think that's what drew me to him more than anything else."
In October 1992 Rubin and his label manager, Mark Geiger, had seen Cash make an appearance on Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Celebration at New York's Madison Square Garden. Both of them were highly impressed with the way in which Cash grabbed the crowd and particularly noticed his ability to capture the younger members of the audience. They talked about the possibility of doing something with him, and a couple of weeks later Geiger was talking to Cash's agent, Jim Gosnell.
"It just so happened that a couple of weeks earlier I had been talking to Lou Robin, who had told me that John wasn't happy at Mercury," says Gosnell. "He felt that country radio had just abandoned him. When Mark mentioned this idea about Def American I was over the moon about it. I called Lou, and Lou had never heard of Rick Rubin but he had an open ear. He responded to my enthusiasm and agreed to set up a meeting between Rick and John."
Cash was reticent at first. "It was just another record company as far as he knew," says Robin. "I took Rick into the dressing room before the show in Santa Ana, and they sat there and stared at each other for two minutes. They didn't say a word. They were sizing each other up. Then they started chatting and found that they had a lot in common. There was Rick with this big scruffy beard, and suddenly Johnny found that here was someone who thought about handling his music the same way that he did. That's how it all started."
Cash was slightly bemused that someone from the alternative side of the rock market thought he could do something with a sixty-two-year-old Baptist from Arkansas. What did Rubin imagine he could do that hadn't been done before? Rubin explained that the first thing he wanted to do was to get Cash to sit down with an acoustic guitar and play through all the songs he loved, and, perhaps more importantly, perform them exactly the way he heard them. That way, he could get a sense of what Cash really wanted to record, and they'd take it from there.
This happened to fit with an idea Cash had been nurturing. In a just-published interview with Country Music magazine, he mentioned that he'd been collecting a cache of songs, explaining, "When I get in the right situation I'm going to record the best album I've ever had. There are a lot of albums I want to do. I want to do an album of real 'heart' folk songs, or country songs, or love songs, mainly with just me and my guitar and I want to call it Johnny Cash Alone and Late."
Cash already had a busy schedule touring the country with the Highwaymen as well as playing the Wayne Newton Theater in Branson (in lieu of dates that should have been at Cash Country), but he found time to meet with Rubin in California while he was filming the TV series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman with Jane Seymour. Between May 17 and 20 he recorded thirty-three songs, almost all of them with his acoustic guitar as the only backing. These were songs in his own back catalogue that he felt hadn't been properly recorded ("Drive On," "Flesh and Blood"), traditional songs ("Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie," "Banks of the Ohio"), country classics ("Long Black Veil," "Waiting for a Train"), songs by friends (Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson), and songs recommended by Rubin (Glenn Danzig's "Thirteen").
The purity of the results was striking. The absence of record-company pressure lifted a burden from his shoulders, and for the first time in years Cash openly explored his own tastes. Rubin's purpose at this point was not to cut an acoustic album, but to find out what Cash had inside him and to suggest some songs that might challenge beyond the boom-chicka-boom sound. Above all, he wanted to create an environment that would reignite Johnny's passion for the recording process.
Being picked up by someone who believed in him and who wanted him to explore his music beyond the constraints of demographics was truly a godsend for Cash. It made him feel wanted. Cash and Rubin shared common interests in spiritual matters, poetry, and issues of justice and would spend hours talking to each other on the phone. "Rick became not just his producer but his muse," says Rosanne. "He was like this angel that swooped down into his life. He gave Dad this wonderful focus, inspiration, and passion."
Over the next six months they continued to record in the living room of Rubin's home, just off Sunset Strip. They also went to Ocean Way Studios in Santa Monica to experiment with other musicians who had previously worked with Rubin: the Red Devils, Tom Petty's guitarist Mike Campbell, Chad Smith, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For Rubin, any combination was worth trying—time and money were irrelevant. The overriding goal was for Cash to rediscover his authentic voice. Back in Hendersonville, Cash continued the process, recording gospel songs alone in his cabin studio and finding fresh approaches to some of the songs he'd worked on in Hollywood.
"I was always trying to find songs that fit the mythical image of Johnny Cash," explains Rubin. "What would the Man in Black sing? Well, the Man in Black would sing serious songs. He would sing weighty songs. He might sing spiritual songs. They would be songs with gravity."
By
December 7, he'd recorded ninety-four songs, the most reworked being Tom Waits's "Down There by the Train," Glenn Danzig's "Thirteen," and Nick Lowe's "The Beast in Me." As one last experiment, Rubin suggested a first-ever solo performance in public—a full-length show using only his acoustic guitar. As a venue, he picked what was then one of the hippest clubs in Hollywood, the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard, and booked Cash for three days, beginning on a Thursday evening. It was only a few minutes from Rubin's house.
The object of the experiment was twofold. The show would be taped and therefore would yield different performances of the songs than those given in the living room. It would also test Cash with a totally unfamiliar audience. The Viper Room, owned by Johnny Depp, was the favored hangout of young musicians, actors, models, and filmmakers. Few of them would be likely to have an extensive knowledge of Cash's back catalogue. If he could make an impression on this crowd with his simple, timeless songs, then the word would quickly spread. As Rubin says, "Word travels fast from shows like this."
Cash agreed to play but was initially very nervous about being alone in front of an audience. "There's one thing about doing a solo," he said to Jim Gosnell before walking onto the stage. "You can't blame the drummer for screwing up." Only when he got in front of the microphone and halfway through his opening number, "Delia's Gone," did his fears evaporate. The 150-strong Hollywood crowd, well known for its coolness, voiced its appreciation early and continued to do so for the full ninety minutes. Songs that made no concession to contemporary trends, that used no hip language, cut through the superficial surface fashion to the universal heart. When he'd finished playing his newly recorded material, he gave them a selection of his greatest hits.