American IV: The Man Comes Around (CD - 2002)

Personnel includes: Johnny Cash (vocals, guitar); Fiona Apple, Don Henley, Nick Cave (vocals); Smokey Hormel (acoustic guitar, slide guitar); Randy Scruggs, Jeff Hannah, Kerry Marx, Mike Campbell, Marty Stuart, John Frusciante, Thom Bresh (acoustic guitar); "Cowboy" Jack Clement (dobro); David Ferguson (ukelele); Laura Cash (fiddle); Terry Harrington (clarinet); Benmont Tench (piano, Wurlitzer piano, organ, harmonium, pipe organ, mellotron); Roger Manning Jr. (piano, harmonium, chamberlain, mellotron, orchestra bells); Billy Preston (piano); Joey Waronker (drums).

Recorded at Cash Cabin, Nashville, Tennessee and Akademie Mathematique Of Philosphical Sound Research, Los Angeles, California. Includes liner notes by Johnny Cash.

"Give My Love To Rose" won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals.

Includes a bonus DVD featuring a music video for the song "Hurt".

Personnel includes: Johnny Cash (vocals, guitar); Fiona Apple, Don Henley, Nick Cave (vocals); Smokey Hormel (acoustic guitar, slide guitar); Randy Scruggs, Jeff Hannah, Kerry Marx, Mike Campbell, Marty Stuart, John Frusciante, Thom Bresh (acoustic guitar); "Cowboy" Jack Clement (dobro); David Ferguson (ukelele); Laura Cash (fiddle); Terry Harrington (clarinet); Benmont Tench (piano, Wurlitzer piano, organ, harmonium, pipe organ, mellotron); Roger Manning Jr. (piano, harmonium, chamberlain, mellotron, orchestra bells); Billy Preston (piano); Joey Waronker (drums).

Recorded at Cash Cabin, Nashville, Tennessee and Akademie Mathematique Of Philosphical Sound Research, Los Angeles, California. Includes liner notes by Johnny Cash.

"Give My Love To Rose" won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.

AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals.

Johnny Cash's fourth project with producer Rick Rubin continues on the same path as many of their previous releases: Cash's warm and rumbling baritone over minimal production and gentle duets with some surprising guests. One of the things that sets American IV: The Man Comes Around apart from the others is Cash's song selections. The success he experienced with his previous interpretations of contemporary songwriters (Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage," Nick Cave's "The Mercy Seat") is applied to this album with varying degrees of success. His throaty reading of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" easily fits into his "Man in Black" persona, and the spiritual conviction underlying Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" is certainly powerful. Unfortunately, the inclusion of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (featuring a lost-sounding Fiona Apple) and a passionless snooze through the Beatles' "In My Life" should have been so much stronger (given the subject matter of both songs and Cash's prolific life story). One of the reasons his previous covers were so successful is that in the past he had chosen some pretty obscure songs (Bonnie Prince Billy's "I See a Darkness" and Beck's "Rowboat," to name a couple) and reinterpreted them with his unique perspective and unmistakable voice. However, there is really no need to hear his versions of the Irish standard "Danny Boy" or the clunky rendition of Sting's "I Hung My Head," since something about them just doesn't fit -- either Cash wasn't entirely comfortable with the song or the performance was never fully realized. Luckily, the new songs Cash wrote for the album are pretty strong, and his cover of the standard "We'll Meet Again" is among the best versions of the song ever recorded. It is a relief to hear that, although Cash's voice is clearly older and not the booming powerhouse it was in the earlier Sun and Columbia days, he's still got some punch left in him, and the wisdom he's gained in his later life seeps through between the grooves, revealing a man who has lived through it all and lived to tell the tale. ~ Zac Johnson

When the first volume of Johnny Cash's AMERICAN series appeared in 1994, it would have been difficult to predict its critical and commercial success, much less the fact that an illness-beset Cash would be turning out a powerful fourth installment of the series eight years later. Like its three predecessors, AMERICAN IV is a home-recorded, bare-bones Rick Rubin production wherein Cash tackles old classics by other writers as well as more contemporary tunes by artists from the rock world, with a smattering of his own new compositions thrown in. It's also arguably the strongest since the first volume.

Now that the novelty of hearing the Man in Black tackle tunes by the likes of Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus") and Nine Inch Nails ("Hurt") has worn off, we can get past the gimmickry to fully appreciate the power of Cash's soul-baring interpretations. He brings an equal amount of gravitas to old country and folk tunes like "Streets of Laredo" and "Give My Love to Rose." To hear Cash's worn, husky, lived-in voice inhabit the world-weary narrative of the Beatles' "In My Life" and the graphic, almost spiritual romance of the Ewan MacColl-penned ballad "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is to be led directly to the heart of these songs' deepest meanings.

When the first volume of Johnny Cash's AMERICAN series appeared in 1994, it would have been difficult to predict its critical and commercial success, much less the fact that an illness-beset Cash would be turning out a powerful fourth installment of the series eight years later. Like its three predecessors, AMERICAN IV is a home-recorded, bare-bones Rick Rubin production wherein Cash tackles old classics by other writers as well as more contemporary tunes by artists from the rock world, with a smattering of his own new compositions thrown in. It's also arguably the strongest since the first volume.

Now that the novelty of hearing the Man in Black tackle tunes by the likes of Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus") and Nine Inch Nails ("Hurt") has worn off, we can get past the gimmickry to fully appreciate the power of Cash's soul-baring interpretations. He brings an equal amount of gravitas to old country and folk tunes like "Streets of Laredo" and "Give My Love to Rose." To hear Cash's worn, husky, lived-in voice inhabit the world-weary narrative of the Beatles' "In My Life" and the graphic, almost spiritual romance of the Ewan MacColl-penned ballad "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is to be led directly to the heart of these songs' deepest meanings. minimize