Look Again to the Wind Revisited Poster
A Special Release Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Cash'due south Landmark Album
Look Once again To The Wind: Johnny Cash'due south Bitter Tears Revisited
Of all the dozens of albums released pastJohnny Cash during his nearly half-century career, 1964'sBitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian was amidst the closest to the artist's heart. A concept album focusing on the mistreatment and marginalization of the Native American people throughout the history ofthe United States, its 8 songs—amongst them "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," a #3 hit single for Cash on theBillboard state nautical chart—spoke in frank and poetic linguistic communication of the hardships and intolerance they endured.
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At present, 50 years after it was recorded, a collective of top Americana artists has come together to reimagine and update these songs that meant then much to Cash, who died in 2003.Look Again To The Air current: Johnny Greenbacks's Bitter Tears Revisited (Sony Music Masterworks,Baronial 19), produced byJoe Henry (Bonnie Raitt,Aaron Neville), features American music giantsKris Kristofferson,Emmylou Harris,Steve Earle,Beak Miller,Gillian Welch andDavid Rawlings, andNorman and Nancy Blake, besides as upwards-and-comers the Milk Carton Kids andRhiannon Giddens, interpreting the music ofBiting Tears for a new generation. Equally his projection was for Cash, the new collection is a labor of love with a potent sense of purpose fueling its creation.
"Prior toBitter Tears, the conversation well-nigh Native American rights had non really been had," says Henry, "and at a very significant moment in his trajectory,Johnny Cash was willing to depict a line and insist that this be considered a homo rights event, aslope the civil rights result that was coming to fruition in 1964. Merely he likewise felt that the record had never been heard, so there's a real sense that we're beingness asked to carry it forward."
Bitter Tears, widely acknowledged for decades as one of Cash'southward greatest artistic achievements, did not realize its stature as a landmark recording easily and quickly. At the fourth dimension that Cash proposed the anthology, he was met with a great bargain of resistance from his record label. They felt that a song wheel revolving around the Native American struggle as perpetrated by the white human took him besides far afield of the country mainstream and Cash's core audition. Cash notwithstanding released the anthology and although it did non perform also as he had hoped, he remained extremely proud of the album throughout his life.
Ironically, at the same time that his own characterization was balking because information technology felt he would alienate the country audition with his Native American tales, Cash was finding a new set of admirers among the burgeoning folk music oversupply that had recently made stars of Bob Dylan,Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. Cash's debut operation of "Ira Hayes" at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had earned him rave reviews. His appeal was undeniably expanding across the state audience, and for those who did connect withBiting Tears, among them a 17-yr-one-time aspiring singer-songwriter namedEmmylou Harris, its music was revelatory and important. "The record was a seminal piece of work for her as a teenager," says Henry. "She bought the album brand new and realized at that moment thatJohnny Greenbacks was a folk singer, not a country vocalist, and was involving himself politically and socially in a way that she had identified with the swell folk singers at that moment."
Henry's awareness of Harris' affection forBitter Tears led him to invite her to contribute toLook Over again To The Wind:Johnny Greenbacks'sBitter Tears Revisited. Post-obit the epic, ix-infinitesimal album-opener "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow," written by Peter La Farge—a folk vocalizer-songwriter with Native American bloodlines who Cash had befriended—and sung here past Welch and Rawlings, Harris takes the lead vocal on the Cash-penned "Apache Tears," which also features sweet, shut harmonies by the Milk Carton Kids, the duo comprisingKenneth Pattengale andJoey Ryan. For Henry, carefully matching creative person to song was integral to the integrity ofLook Once more To The Wind. For some of the tracks, that process required a cracking bargain of consideration. But when information technology came to deciding who would interpret "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," Henry quickly zeroed in on Kristofferson.
Some other of five songs on the original album written by La Farge, "The Ballad ofIra Hayes" is based on the true story ofIra Hamilton Hayes, a Pima Indian who was 1 of the six Marines seen raising the flag at Iwo Jima in an iconic World State of war Ii photograph. Hayes' moment of glory was followed upon his return to civilian life with prejudice and alcoholism—Cash, moved past Hayes' story and La Farge's recounting of information technology, vowed to record the song. When planning outLook Once again To The Current of air, Henry knew that only a few living singers could deliver the vocal the way he wanted to hear it. He called Kristofferson, utilizing Rawlings and Welch to sing groundwork.
"I wanted somebody whose relationship withJohnny Greenbacks was not merely musical simply personal," he says. "I'd worked with Kris on a couple of other things and I thought why not ask? Who else has a phonation with that kind of power and authority?" That same sense of intuition guided Henry to choose the other participants and the cloth they would render. For La Farge'south "Custer," the album'due south third song, the producer knew instinctively thatSteve Earle was the right man for the task. "Steve is an upstart, and there are very few people I can imagine working right now who could deliver a song that is that pointed in that particular style and practise it authentically without cowering from it or making information technology feel a little too arch," Henry says. "He actually could embody the kind of swagger that that vocal insists upon."
Similarly, Henry choseNancy Blake (with Harris and Welch on backing vocals) for the Cash-written "The Talking Leaves,"Norman Blake to sing "Drums," the Milk Carton Kids to lead "White Girl" (both of those authored past La Farge) and the powerhouse vocalistRhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the original album's finale, "The Vanishing Race," written by Greenbacks'southward practiced friendJohnny Horton. To eternalize the album (the original, typical of mid-'60s vinyl LPs, ran just over a one-half hour), Henry fills out the rail list ofLook Again To The Air current with reprises of "Apache Tears" and "As Long As the Grass Shall Abound"—both sung by Welch and Rawlings—and ends the ready with the title track, a La Farge tune that did not announced on the originalJohnny Cash album but instead on the songwriter'south own 1963 releaseAs Long as the Grass Shall Grow: Peter La Farge Sings Of The Indians. Here information technology'south sung pastBill Miller, withSam Bush-league providing mandolin andDennis Hunker upright bass, a fine and fitting coda to the collection.
From the start, Henry looked at the project as i that would require slap-up personal commitment and responsibility on his ain part. Approached as potential producer of the project by the man who first envisioned it, Sony Music Masterworks' Senior Vice PresidentChuck Mitchell (who'd been in conversations with Antonino D'Ambrosio, author ofA Heartbeat and a Guitar, a volume about the making ofBitter Tears), Henry immediately understood the importance of the assignment. "Johnny Greenbacks was my get-go musical hero and I experience a profound debt to him as an artist, and every bit a courageous one," he says. "How could I say no to that?"
He as well realized that theBitter Tears album held a special place in Cash's canon, and that in many ways the issues it raised nevertheless resonate today—this had to be apparent in the new versions. "Mr. Cash knew that if he took this on, fifty-fifty if his point of view was non adopted, he had the power to be heard," Henry says.
The anthology was recorded in three sessions: the first ii inLos Angeles andNashville and, lastly, i at the Cash Cabin, in Cash'southward hometown ofHendersonville, Tennessee, whereBill Miller cut his contribution. Providing the instrumental backing for most of the album areGreg Leisz (steel guitar, guitars), Keefus Ciancia (keyboards),Patrick Warren (keyboards for the L.A. sessions),Jay Bellerose (drums) andDave Piltch (bass).
TRACKLIST:
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Every bit Long as the Grass Shall Grow – feat.Gillian Welch &David Rawlings
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Apache Tears – feat.Emmylou Harris w/The Milk Carton Kids
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Custer – feat.Steve Earle west/The Milk Carton Kids
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The Talking Leaves – feat.Nancy Blake w/Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings
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The Carol ofIra Hayes – feat.Kris Kristofferson w/Gillian Welch &David Rawlings
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Drums – feat.Norman Blake w/Nancy Blake,Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &David Rawlings
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Apache Tears (Reprise) – feat.Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings
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White Girl – feat. The Milk Carton Kids
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The Vanishing Race – feat.Rhiannon Giddens
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As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (Reprise) – feat.Nancy Blake,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings
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Look Over again to The Wind – feat. Neb Miller
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Source: http://billmiller.co/look-again-to-the-wind/
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