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The International Johnny Cash – Liner Notes

Germany, Australia, United Kingdom or the USA and Canada... if you talk about country music in any part of the world it is more than likely that the name Johnny Cash will be mentioned during the conversation. Cash is undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in American popular music. He has been an influence on country and rock artists alike. The list reads like a who’s who of music – Bob Dylan, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Marty Stuart, Rosanne Cash, Carlene Carter, Bruce Springsteen and Nick Lowe are just a few.

Cash was instrumental to Dylan’s signing to Columbia Records in the early sixties and has been a long time supporter of his music. When Dylan released his ‘Freewheelin’ album in the early sixties Cash used to keep it with him during his concert tours. He would play the record before and after the shows and eventually wrote to Dylan expressing his admiration. It was no surprise that in his reply Dylan stated that he had followed Cash’s career since first hearing I Walk The Line. Following the 1965 Newport Festival, at which Dylan shocked his audience by playing an electric guitar, Cash defended him in ‘Broadside’ magazine pointing out that it was what he said, not how he said it. He ended with the comment “Shut up and let him sing.”

Cash has often been credited for his help and encouragement for many artists including The Oakridge Boys, Statler Brothers, Larry Gatlin and fellow Highwayman Kris Kristofferson. It was Cash who made Sunday Morning Coming Down one of the biggest country singles of 1970. Kristofferson was working as a janitor at Columbia Records and, although banned from talking or pitching songs to the artists, often talked to June Carter. Everytime Cash held a session Kris would pass June a tape. The story goes that these tapes piled up at John’s house unplayed. To make sure that Cash heard his songs he landed a helicopter in the back yard, walked over to Cash and said “I thought the best way to do it would be to land in your yard. You wouldn’t forget that would you?”. Cash didn’t and has often been quoted as saying that he has never performed a concert without including Sunday Morning Coming Down, the song Kristofferson handed him that day.

To illustrate further Cash’s influence on Country Music artists these quotes show the love and respect that he has gained from fellow performers “You always have and you always will set the standards in country music” (Kenny Rogers), “We learned more from Johnny Cash than you can learn from any other one single person. It was our higher education in the music business” (Harold Reid - The Statler Brothers), “Johnny Cash is the reason I play country music. He was different. Cash was bigger than life. He knows how to fill up a room. Elvis Presley had it. Bob Dylan has it. Geronimo probably had it. Jesus Christ had it. Johnny Cash has it.” (Marty Stuart).

In a letter to ‘Country Music’ magazine Larry Gatlin wrote “Even if you hadn’t been one of the first people to befriend me when I came to Nashville or hadn’t been the first one to put me on National Television or taken an interest in my songs, I’d still love you”

Jerry Lee Lewis considers Cash “an inspiration to us who know him,” while fellow Sun artist Carl Perkins, who worked with Cash for several years, is proud to say that “Johnny Cash is one of the finest guys that I have ever known.”

Even Cash’s daughter Rosanne has been influenced by her father, albeit indirectly. When she recorded the track Tennessee Flat Top Box for her King’s Record Shop album she was unaware that her father had written it and thought it was in the public domain!

It is not only the country music world that has been influenced by Cash’s music. Throughout the eighties and nineties a diverse range of artists approached Cash for him to appear on their single or album releases. In 1984 he appeared on the Ray Charles track Crazy Old Soldier and has also appeared on Mark O’Connor’s The Devil Comes Back To Georgia, the 1992 answer record to Charlie Daniels The Devil Went Down To Georgia. In 1993 U2 lead singer Bono approached Cash about appearing on a track on their forthcoming album. He lent his vocal support to the track The Wanderer which appeared on their Zooropa album.

When Jon Langford, frontman of the Leeds punk band The Mekons, wanted to put an album together as a benefit on behalf of the Terrence Higgins Trust it was to Cash’s extensive catalogue that he turned. The 1988 album ‘Til Things Are Brighter featured artists like Marc Almond, Pete Shelley (ex-Buzzcocks), Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) all giving their own interpretations of Cash material. More recently the tribute album, Cash On Delivery, once more featured artists lending their own style to some Cash classics.

The 1999 All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash highlighted his influence on country and pop/rock artists. Paying their own individual tributes were Sheryl Crow, Chris Isaaks, Bob Dylan, The Mavericks, Kris Kristofferson, Wyclef Jean, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, U2, Bruce Springsteen and Marty Stuart all of whom displayed their own personal debt to his music.

His recent albums American Recordings, Unchained and American III: Solitary Man all featured songs by contemporary artists and have introduced Cash to a brand new generation of fans many of whom may never have heard him before. There is no doubt that his music will be an inspiration to artists for years to come.

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