Wednesday 18th July
Well thank God we are out of the ‘B’s, they went on a bit too long didn’t they, and now for the letter C; and how better to start than the Mighty Johnny Cash. Such a lot has been written about Johnny, and for me, he has always been there. Listening to him singing ‘A Boy Named Sue’ as a kid in the back of the Ford Zodiac, watching a grainy black and white film of him ‘Live at San Quentin’ in the sixties, and then discovering him on the albums White Mansions, and Jesse James, catching him duet-ting with Waylon Jennings in the eighties, buying a Greatest Hits in a car-boot sale in the nineties. Then the renaissance of the American Recordings albums with Rick Rubin producing in the last few years, culminating in the splendid heart-breaking video of ‘Hurt’, which seemed to sum up a life in a few short minutes. So the drug-taking, heavy drinking, womanizing, deeply Christian deep voiced hell raiser was finally laid to rest a couple of years ago, and somehow we all miss him. Far more than Elvis, who probably had a better voice, but for me the epitome of that fifties rock-a-billy sound that came rolling out of the deep-south will always be Johnny Cash. They don’t make ‘em, like that anymore
