The golden era of rock and roll is strongly associated with 45-inch single records. A full-length music album in our understanding, with a well-developed concept and unity of sound, is a sign of a later era, when music has already died. But there were longplays back in the fifties, and today we look at Johnny Cash’s debut album “Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar”, which became the first not only for the Man in Black, but also for a small label from Memphis, Tennessee, called Sun Records.
For me, this is a bit of a non-standard publication in the sense that I usually describe psycho contemporaries rather than classics. And that’s why I’ll describe Johnny Cash’s debut album without any special historical details. There are enough authors in our magazine who can make it better and more interesting.
No, it won’t do without historical references at all, but I’m more interested in another point: how the 1957 record feels nowadays. Has Johnny Cash become as important a figure now as he was back then? I have a very specific answer, but let’s come to it together as we listen.
So Johnny Cash has already taken his first blue-headed steps. Under the charge of Sam Phillips, Sun Records has already released Hey, Porter!/Cry, Cry, Cry! and Folsom Prison Blues/So Doggone Lonesome, and Cash himself, along with his backing band Tennessee Two, has already gained popularity. In many ways, this popularity was brought by “I Walk the Line”, which was released a year before the album. Two million copies sounds very impressive now, and even more so three quarters of a century ago.
And so, after a couple of summer and autumn months in the studio, on October 11, 1957, the long-awaited LP was released. It’s worth clarifying exactly what the album meant in those days. Not this one specifically, but the phenomenon of the long-playing LP in general. In general, everything works the same as it does now: singles fuel interest in a big release. But it is worth remembering about the physical nature of the carrier. You buy one big record instead of several small ones, and besides (almost) all the single material, you also get a few new tracks. And it’s all on one record!
I understand the obviousness of the above, but repetition is the mother of learning, and in the circles of rockabilly and country music fans, repeating previously learned material should not be considered something shameful.
On the other hand, an album release is like a big solo concert. And this logic is best suited to Johnny Cash’s debut album.
After all, in the best rockabilly traditions, which Johnny himself asked, only about half of the material is copyrighted. And the album opens with the proven hit Rock Island Line by Huddy William Ledbetter, better known by his underground nickname “Leadbelly”. This legendary black bluesman gave the world a lot of songs, which he prudently collected in his circles. Ironically, the song is from black neighborhood, dedicated to not very legitimate actions. This is a kind of bragging about successful vehicle tax fraud. Well, Johnny Cash is no stranger to all this criminal romance after all. Musically, this song, with uncharacteristic tempo games for modern music, is more like a buffoonery, an entertaining number by an artist of the original genre. The simple story unfolds in all blue-black colors.
If the first track was a kind of nod to the black side of music, with its blues and criminality, then the second song is an equally powerful recognition of the other side, with wide hats, revolvers and rural pastorals. (I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle is written by country music father Hank Williams I. It is very interesting how the signature style of Cash and lead guitarist Luther Perkins adjusts to a more iridescent conventional manner. However, it is very difficult to imagine this song in any other way, which tells about a locomotive horn that marks the epochs of life.
And so, saluting the late pioneers from both sides of the musical spectrum, the first Country Boy piece breaks into the third track. Having an almost illegal pressure at that time, she combines a rapid rhythm, literally imitating that fateful steam locomotive. Rhythmicity combined with an obsessive melody, a simple and understandable message about the delights of rural life.
The following composition is performed in approximately the same spirit, but with thoughts on higher matters of a religious nature. If the Good Lord’s Willing, written by Jerry Reed, who was twenty years old at the time of the album’s release, was recorded by the author in 1955. But it was Johnny Cash who made this song popular. So Hurt is far from the first time when Cash’s performance overshadows the original artist.
Well, it’s time for a real hit. You all know this song perfectly well. Cry, Cry, Cry was not originally aimed at being a hit, and in the single edition it modestly rested on side B. It’s funny that the song from side A of that single, Hey, Porter!, is not even included in the first version of the album, but appears only as a bonus track in the reissue. It was Cry, Cry, Cry that brought Cash to the rock and roll world, because after the popularity of the single, joint performances with Elvis Presley began. Not the most typical path for a country artist, even in those days. Jerry Reed, for example, couldn’t boast of that.
Remember Me, the measured lulling song of the singing cowboy Stuart Hamblen, gives you the opportunity to take a break, arrange a light siesta.
So Doggone Lonesome very unobtrusively shows one of the signature sides of Cash’s work: the deep melancholy of the future Man in Black (this image is still a few years away), which is combined with the signature rhythm. The fact is that these are rather ill-matched things: a funny pubrock rhythm, frisky, at that time, and deep low vocals that tell about the futility of being. It wouldn’t have worked for anyone, but you can trust Cash, and it’s just impossible to imagine him to others.
I Was There When It Happened is another gospel song, notable for the completely unexpected backing vocals of the Tennessee duo. After this cover, the real pearl will begin, although for me it’s more like a native diamond without a cut.
The fact is that I Walk the Line is a very strange song. It is because of its strangeness that it is remembered, and it stands out even on the record itself. It’s not just about the pseudo-drum. The tempo is too slow, as if the song is missing just a couple beats per minute. The guitar is here, although in the signature rhythm of “boom-chica-boom”, but the notes last so long that it’s like a tuning fork. On top of that, Cash seems to be singing along to this song. All this sounds like something that is not unfinished, but rather caught in the moment, still changing its shape.
In contrast, The Wreck of Old ’97 sounds much more cheerful and cash-like. Yes, a cover is more characteristic than one of the most famous songs.
Although Cash’s real hit, the Folsom Prison Blues, is also quite measured. I don’t really want to say anything about the second single, which originally released the song a year earlier. This song is as concise as possible. As if she needed not a discussion, but a measured shaking of her head to the rhythm.
The album ends with Jimmy Skinner’s Doin’ My Time. Like the well-known Folsom Prison, this song is dedicated to hard labor. The joke about the relationship between country music and chanson has a lot of truth, but it still remains a joke.
So, we’ve got a fresh look at the first LP from Johnny Cash and Sun Records. Speaking of the format, it is clear that long work, both for Cash and for Sun, is clearly a novelty. At least from a technical point of view: some individual tracks sound very different. However, the already quite mature approach to the construction of the album’s lyrics makes the record a classic, and not just a historical artifact.
As for Johnny Cash himself, he once again emphasized his uniqueness through cover versions. Because whether you want to or not, there’s Johnny Cash, and there’s all the other country singers. The Cash feed is so specific that it causes an exorbitant amount of trust in it. And there is nothing more important than trust.
