Christmas with Johnny Cash [Sony] Johnny Cash Artist

This 2012 reissue is a collection of 12 songs recorded between 1962 and 1980. Many of these songs will be familiar to the {|Cash|} faithful, since all but one song were previously released, but there are a few surprises. {|Cash|}'s own The Christmas ... Read more

This 2012 reissue is a collection of 12 songs recorded between 1962 and 1980. Many of these songs will be familiar to the {|Cash|} faithful, since all but one song were previously released, but there are a few surprises. {|Cash|}'s own The Christmas Spirit, from an album of the same name recorded in 1962, is moving in that otherworldly way that only {|Cash|} could be. He spoke and sang as a man forgiven. Likewise, his O Come All Ye Faithful is a different reading of the song. Rather than just a work of power and majesty, one can hear in the grain of his voice not so much a rallying cry, but a gentle exhortation to open one's eyes and see. In Silent Night, the earth whispers to a profound stillness. But the most moving track here is the final one, the unreleased Christmas as I Knew It, from a rehearsal for The Johnny Cash Show. {|Cash|} intones a poem about his childhood, strumming a guitar with vibes quietly in the background before strings come up underneath, offering an opening into the gentle, stalwart dignity in {|Cash|}'s delivery that every word is true. And it was true -- every word -- for 50 years in the music business; every word, whether lived or imagined, was all true. And in the spirit of Christmas, there is something to be grateful for: we at least had {|Johnny Cash|} in this old world. ~ Thom Jurek Less