Posts Tagged ‘Johnny Cash’
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
We are unabashed fans of Johnny Cash’s American Recordings. The five albums that Johnny Cash recorded with Rick Rubin (and the 5 disc boxed set created in addition to that material) are considered by many to be the best recordings of Cash’s career. While the albums had some original material, it was Cash’s covers of some all time classic recordings that really got our attention. In particular, we love Cash’s versions of Neil Diamond’s Solitary Man and U2’s One. Read on for soundclips.
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Tags: Johnny Cash, Martin
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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
When we’re looking for inspiration on acoustic guitar, we often go back to Johnny Cash’s American Recordings. Recently, while doing some research on Cash we learned something quite startling. It turns out the Man in Black made much of his great early music while only knowing about four chords. According to a 2001 article on Johnny Cash in Acoustic Guitar Magazine:
“It’s nice of you to call me a guitarist,” says Cash. “I know about four chords, and they’ve always worked for me: C, F, G7, and A minor. Or if you’re in G, that’s G, C, D7, and A minor.”
Cash admits he had to learn a few more for the American Recordings. Still, if Cash could have created his incredible body of work with only four chords, imagine what you could do with six or seven!
Photo Credit: Alexindigo under a Creative Commons License
The Guitars of Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash’s American Recordings (Amazon)
No Regrets (Acoustic Guitar Magazine)
Subscribe to Acoustic Guitar Magazine
Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Johnny Cash
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Friday, August 1st, 2008
While some guitarists play a variety of different guitars from different manufacturers, others stick with what works. Johnny Cash fell squarely in the latter category. If Johnny Cash was playing a guitar, you could be pretty confident it was a Martin dreadnought. The Martin guitars that Cash played included 1969 Martin D-28, a 1976 Martin D-76 limited edition made to commemorate the bicentennial, a 1982 custom Martin D-45 signed by C. F. Martin III and C. F. Martin IV, a 1989 custom D-35 and #1 of the 1997 signature Martin D-42JC (Johnny Cash Signature).
The story behind the custom D-35 is the most interesting. According to the Martin Guitar website, the all-black D-35 custom was built when C. F. Martin III was head of the company and had to be built in secret because C. F. thought an all-black guitar was too “radical.” According to the story, C. F. remained unaware of the instrument until he saw Johnny Cash playing it on Columbo. Once he saw it on t.v., he liked it. In 2006, Martin released the D-35 Johnny Cash Commemorative Edition modeled on that first all-black Martin.
The American Recordings that Johnny Cash recorded during the end of his career are personal favorites for us at Fretbase. On the first album simply entitled “American Recordings,” Cash played the 1997 Martin D-42JC. That guitar was the first all-black limited edition guitar ever offered by Martin. It was a 14-fret dreadnought with forward-shifted scalloped X-bracing and a three-piece back made of East Indian Rosewood.
Martin D-35 Johnny Cash Commemorative Edition on Musician’s Friend
Martin D-42JC
Martin D-76 on Elderly Instruments
Click on for some favorite Cash tunes.
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Tags: Acoustic Guitar, guitar, Johnny Cash, martin guitar
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