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One late-summer evening as I was zapping through the music channels here in The Netherlands, my thumb froze over the remote. On the screen singing was, not the usual parade of lewd, crafted, playbacking little mouths seemingly right of production lines, not good capable singers only better than the rest because of management and advertisement skills; it was a man dressed in black, looking old as death, with a voice raw as a crow's. I did not know it was he, if it had mattered. It was Cash, singing "Hurt". I looked, listened but then more. It was so unspeakably sad, so unfathomably melancholic. How can I describe the emotions hearing that song? Haunted and moved don't seem adequate.

Enchantment. I was a youth with a passion for music: metal, symphonic, classic, techno. Give it to me, give it to me every day, all day long. I'll be satisfied. I was a youth, looking at an old man, singing for me, singing of his life and emotions. Music moves me always, but it was this music, barely more than a voice and an acoustic guitar, that drew a tear, dropped into my heart - then another and another. Silent, invisible tears filling hollows, and all that showed on the outside, were a sniff of the nose and a blink of the eyes. I was a youth.

Many of the songs on this final album, including "Hurt", are covers, even though some are his own. Cash here also covers Paul Simon, Hank Williams and John Lennon. Not all of his arrangements are better than the originals. Technically. But Cash performs with such feeling, such sway, such voice, that this is the most cherished music I've bought in a lifetime.

Then, as I sat there oblivious, and wishing I had seen the whole thing, the clip ended and I saw Cash's name. I turned off the set, stood, and hoped I would hear it again. Weeks later, Cash was dead. Today, I still know hardly more.

Five stars to this album

Bram Janssen,
The Netherlands


Definitely worth every penny   June 18, 2003
 126 out of 133 found this review helpful

This collection of songs from various artists sung by the great man in black is superb. All of the songs tell tales of heart-break, loves, losses, armageddon, and hope. The great thing about Cash on this album is that he really uses his voice to evoke the emotions behind the songs. On "Hurt," a tune by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Cash sings "What have I become/My sweetest Friend/Everyone I know goes away/In the end," and boy can you tell that he means what he sings. It's so brilliant that I prefer Cash's version to the original. Cash has never been known for his beautiful voice, so like Dylan, he uses his own phrasings to really carry the song. He was very wise in his choices of what songs to record on this album. He chose stuff that you wouldn't think he would choose, such as "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode, and "Bridge Over troubled water" by Simon and Garfunkel. Rick Rubin did a perfect job with the production on this album, it's somewhat spare. With so much passion and range of emotion on this album I couldn't give it anything less than five stars. It deserves a place in any music lovers collection.


Reach out and touch faith...   November 7, 2002
 57 out of 59 found this review helpful

This American Recording is different. On this album Johnny Cash (who is now 70 years old) never tries to fool himself or us listeners into thinking that he's going to keep on making album after album after album. Let's face it - the voice is even more ragged and torn than last time (American III) and the lyrics are even more desolate, lonesome, and dark than ever before. But this album of new and old originals & covers is probably one of the most beautiful I've ever heard.

Johnny Cash is not a singer. He never was. But without that dark baritone these songs would not have the impact that they do. I could talk about ever individual track on the album - but I'd rather just make it short and sweet by mentioning a few personal favorites.

"The Man Comes Around" - A Cash original that seemed to take a lot of time to get down (coming from the linear notes). Amazing song about that thing called the apocolypse and judgement day. Nobody could do it like Cash. Nobody...

"Hurt" - Johnny Cash takes one of Trent Reznor's (Nine Inch Nails) best songs and makes it even better. Not only does Cash make the song better but he also makes it seem as if the song was meant for just him. Oh, and there is a word change. Where Reznor would say "I wear this crown of sh*t", Johnny now says "I wear this crown of thorns." The change first kinda put me off but then it seems that Johnny's variation make much more sense then the first.

"Bridge over Toubled Water" - just a great cover of an amazing classic. Fiona Apple adds some tender backing vocals that help Johnny along this tune of trouble and redemption.

"First time ever I saw your face" - Just as where Cash left off on "Spiritual" (from American II) he starts back at with this one. Truly beautiful. Sounds as if they recorded it in a church for Johnny has this amazing echo on his voice. If you don't get tears in your eyes from this one, you're hopeless.

"Sam Hall" - one of the "lighter" tracks, but still painted in black.

"I'm so lonesome I could Cry" - I don't know how it happened. They got 2 of the most interesting singers to appear on a country classic. Nick Cave (who's a big favorite of mine) lent "The Mercy Seat" to Johnny's last American Recording (III), but this time he's lending his voice. Cash and Cave swap lines from this Hank Williams classic.

"We'll meet Again" - so you go through this dark and cold world where people can't even remember how to pray let alone carry a bible and then you come to the end and a smile is finally cracks and some light pours through as the door opens. Cash ends on a positive note and the whole damn Cash family joins in at the very end.

Who knows if Cash will record anymore albums. It's hard to tell. The man is in and out of the hospital constantly (or so it seems) and any one of us would've probably called it quits. Elvis didn't make it, Orbison didn't make it, but the Man in Black is still reaching out and touching us. He's still tormented by the feeling that music must be played. He's still not thinking that this will be the last song he sings. He's still got soul and he's still got love.


American Icon   May 27, 2003
 30 out of 33 found this review helpful

Nearly 50 years after his first recordings, Johnny Cash continues to produce music that is as vital, authentic, and heartfelt as when he first appeared on the scene. This is another in a series of albums that Cash has recorded on the fittingly named American label under the caring ear of producer Rick Rubin. Once again, it seems, Rubin's task has been to help Johnny come up with suitable material, provide him with a band of crackerjack but unobtrusive accompanyists, and to get out of the way. We all know that Cash could sing the alphabet and give it the weight and authority of a classic, but these songs seem especially well chosen. As one of the few artists to be enshrined in both the Country Music and Rock& Roll Halls of Fame, Cash stays true to his ecumenical tastes with an array of songs from such diverse writers as Lennon/McCartney, Paul Simon, Sting, Hank Williams and himself. The oddest, most daring and most compelling selection is his moving rendition of 'Hurt" by Nine Inch Nail's Trent Reznor. Cash's voice, always a unique and complex instrument which paradoxically blends strength and vulnerability, is, like the man, more fragile now. Thus these songs take on a special poignancy and value. We are reminded that, although his music will always be with us, the man himself will not.


A transcendant piece...   January 20, 2003
 28 out of 29 found this review helpful

This music stands with Astral Weeks, Sgt Pepper, and Blonde on Blonde, and Big Pink.

It's stark, and overwhelming, and so beautiful...

All of the songs you thought you knew you didn't. You haven't heard 'Bridge Over Trouble Waters.' Paul Simon couldn't have meant this much when he wrote it. Cash couldn't have understood 'Give My Love To Rose' when he wrote it. 'In My Life' was pretty sentiment, then. Here, it is a bedrock statement, a will, a legacy of dignity and love.

Listen here to a Great American Hero, a hero like Whitman, or Ginsberg, or Hawthorne or Woody Guthrie. Listen here to the reason that John Ford made 'Fort Apache,' and Pynchon wrote
'Gravity's Rainbow,' and Nicholson became Jake in 'Chinatown.'

People, this is the sound of a man dying, with the strength, grace and the dignity of an angel, or a cowboy. Thank Christ that you were alive to hear him.