Album Review: Johnny Cash - Songwriter
Given what they had to work with, co-producers John Carter Cash and David Ferguson probably did the best they could with Johnny Cash’s abandoned, 1993 album of original songs. That leaves the question as to why they decided to resurrect Songwriter more than 30 years after the fact, for, despite a latent classic in “Well Alright,” the posthumous LP is a weight on Cash’s legacy.
Songs such as “Hello out There” and “Drive On” are ethereal, with effects on Cash’s voice as he laments humanity’s failures and the Vietnam experience, respectively, and their production betrays their unfinished status. The Nashville Sound permeates the cheesy “I Love You Tonight” and “She Sang Sweet Baby James,” though the former is notable for being one of two Songwriter tracks to feature backing vocals from Cash’s former Highwaymen bandmate Waylon Jennings.
Other contributors include Dan Auerbach on “Spotlight,” Vince Gill on “Poor Valley Girl” and Marty Stuart on virtually everything. Despite the heavyweights’ good intentions, only the aforementioned “Well Alright,” a playful ditty about finding love in the laundromat driven by Cash’s signature boom-chuck-guitar, is a keeper.
The rest are worth borrowing for fans who want to check in on what Cash was up to just before the American Recordings albums came along.
Grade card: Johnny Cash - Songwriter - C-
7/3/24
