Personnel: Johnny Cash (vocals); Johnny Cash (guitar); Norman Blake (guitar, gut-string guitar, banjo); Al Casey, Ray Edenton (guitar); Carl Perkins (electric guitar); Charlie McCoy (harmonica); Marshall Grant (bass guitar); Bob Wootton (electric guitar, gut-string guitar); Red Lane (gut-string guitar); Chuck Cochran (piano); W.S. Holland (drums); Mark Morris (percussion).
Arranger: Johnny Cash.
One in a series of Johnny Cash albums that celebrates American identity and history, AMERICA is a running catalogue of key events in the development of the nation. The songs are sequenced chronologically--the record begins with "Paul Revere" and "Begin West Movement," moves through "The Gettysburg Address" and "Mister Garfield" (a story of an assassination attempt on the President), and ends with "On Wheels and Wings." Along the way, Cash takes the listener on a journey, from the struggle for American independence to the rise of cars and airplanes.
Like the earlier RIDE THIS TRAIN album, the songs are interspersed with a running commentary by Cash, in a style that is half old-time raconteur, half grass-roots educator. While the subject matter of the record is much broader than that of Cash's more personal material, AMERICA still makes for an intriguing stop in the artist's discography, with its contents equally appropriate for a campfire performance or reference in a junior-high history course. The disc is yet another lesser-known gem from this multifaceted, iconoclastic figure. minimize