Look Again to the Wind Cash Chords Johnny

A Special Release Celebrating the 50th Ceremony of Cash's Landmark Album

Look Once again To The Air current: Johnny Greenbacks's Bitter Tears Revisited

Of all the dozens of albums released byJohnny Cash during his nearly half-century career, 1964'sBitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian was among the closest to the artist's eye. A concept anthology focusing on the mistreatment and marginalization of the Native American people throughout the history ofthe U.s., its eight songs—among them "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," a #3 hitting single for Cash on theBillboard country chart—spoke in frank and poetic linguistic communication of the hardships and intolerance they endured.

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Now, 50 years after information technology was recorded, a collective of summit Americana artists has come together to reimagine and update these songs that meant so much to Cash, who died in 2003.Look Once again To The Air current: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited (Sony Music Masterworks,August 19), produced byJoe Henry (Bonnie Raitt,Aaron Neville), features American music giantsKris Kristofferson,Emmylou Harris,Steve Earle,Bill Miller,Gillian Welch andDavid Rawlings, andNorman and Nancy Blake, likewise every bit up-and-comers the Milk Carton Kids andRhiannon Giddens, interpreting the music ofBitter Tears for a new generation. As his project was for Cash, the new collection is a labor of honey with a strong sense of purpose fueling its creation.

"Prior toBitter Tears, the conversation about Native American rights had not actually been had," says Henry, "and at a very significant moment in his trajectory,Johnny Cash was willing to describe a line and insist that this be considered a human rights outcome, alongside the ceremonious rights issue that was coming to fruition in 1964. But he also felt that the tape had never been heard, then there's a real sense that nosotros're existence asked to carry it forward."

Bitter Tears, widely acknowledged for decades every bit one of Cash's greatest artistic achievements, did not realize its stature as a landmark recording hands and rapidly. At the time that Cash proposed the album, he was met with a nifty deal of resistance from his record label.  They felt that a vocal cycle revolving around the Native American struggle as perpetrated by the white man took him too far afield of the country mainstream and Cash'due south cadre audience. Cash even so released the album and although it did not perform as well as he had hoped, he remained extremely proud of the album throughout his life.

Ironically, at the aforementioned fourth dimension that his ain label was balking because it felt he would alienate the country audition with his Native American tales, Cash was finding a new set of admirers among the burgeoning folk music oversupply that had recently made stars of Bob Dylan,Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. Cash's debut performance of "Ira Hayes" at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had earned him rave reviews.  His entreatment was undeniably expanding beyond the country audience, and for those who did connect withBitter Tears, among them a 17-year-onetime aspiring vocalist-songwriter namedEmmylou Harris, its music was revelatory and important. "The record was a seminal work for her equally a teenager," says Henry. "She bought the album brand new and realized at that moment thatJohnny Greenbacks was a folk singer, not a country singer, and was involving himself politically and socially in a way that she had identified with the groovy folk singers at that moment."

Henry's awareness of Harris' affection forBitter Tears led him to invite her to contribute toAwait Once again To The Wind:Johnny Cash'southBitter Tears Revisited. Post-obit the epic, 9-infinitesimal album-opener "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow," written past Peter La Farge—a folk singer-songwriter with Native American bloodlines who Greenbacks had befriended—and sung here by Welch and Rawlings, Harris takes the lead song on the Cash-penned "Apache Tears," which also features sweet, shut harmonies past the Milk Carton Kids, the duo comprisingKenneth Pattengale andJoey Ryan. For Henry, carefully matching artist to song was integral to the integrity ofAwait Again To The Wind. For some of the tracks, that process required a smashing deal of consideration. But when it came to deciding who would translate "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," Henry quickly zeroed in on Kristofferson.

Another of five songs on the original album written past La Farge, "The Ballad ofIra Hayes" is based on the truthful story ofIra Hamilton Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines seen raising the flag at Iwo Jima in an iconic World War 2 photograph. Hayes' moment of glory was followed upon his render to civilian life with prejudice and alcoholism—Greenbacks, moved by Hayes' story and La Farge's recounting of it, vowed to record the song.  When planning outLook Again To The Wind, Henry knew that simply a few living singers could evangelize the song the way he wanted to hear information technology. He chosen Kristofferson, utilizing Rawlings and Welch to sing background.

"I wanted somebody whose relationship withJohnny Cash was not simply musical but personal," he says. "I'd worked with Kris on a couple of other things and I thought why not ask? Who else has a vocalization with that kind of power and authority?" That same sense of intuition guided Henry to cull the other participants and the material they would render. For La Farge's "Custer," the album'southward 3rd vocal, the producer knew instinctively thatSteve Earle was the right man for the chore. "Steve is an upstart, and there are very few people I tin can imagine working right now who could deliver a song that is that pointed in that item way and practise it authentically without cowering from it or making information technology feel a little as well arch," Henry says. "He actually could embody the kind of swagger that that song insists upon."

Similarly, Henry choseNancy Blake (with Harris and Welch on backing vocals) for the Greenbacks-written "The Talking Leaves,"Norman Blake to sing "Drums," the Milk Carton Kids to lead "White Girl" (both of those authored by La Farge) and the powerhouse vocalistRhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the original album'due south finale, "The Vanishing Race," written by Cash's good friendJohnny Horton. To bolster the album (the original, typical of mid-'60s vinyl LPs, ran just over a half hour), Henry fills out the rail list ofLook Again To The Wind with reprises of "Apache Tears" and "Equally Long Every bit the Grass Shall Grow"—both sung by Welch and Rawlings—and ends the ready with the title runway, a La Farge tune that did not appear on the originalJohnny Greenbacks album but instead on the songwriter's own 1963 releaseEqually Long as the Grass Shall Abound: Peter La Farge Sings Of The Indians. Here information technology's sung byBill Miller, withSam Bush providing mandolin andDennis Crouch upright bass, a fine and plumbing fixtures coda to the drove.

From the get-go, Henry looked at the project equally one that would require great personal commitment and responsibleness on his ain part. Approached equally potential producer of the project by the homo who start envisioned information technology, Sony Music Masterworks' Senior Vice PresidentChuck Mitchell (who'd been in conversations with Antonino D'Ambrosio, author ofA Heartbeat and a Guitar, a book about the making ofBiting Tears), Henry immediately understood the importance of the assignment. "Johnny Cash was my start musical hero and I experience a profound debt to him as an creative person, and as a courageous i," he says. "How could I say no to that?"

He besides realized that theBitter Tears album held a special identify in Cash'south canon, and that in many ways the issues information technology raised yet resonate today—this had to be apparent in the new versions. "Mr. Cash knew that if he took this on, even if his bespeak of view was not adopted, he had the power to exist heard," Henry says.

The album was recorded in iii sessions: the outset 2 inLos Angeles andNashville and, lastly, one at the Greenbacks Cabin, in Cash's hometown ofHendersonville, Tennessee, whereBill Miller cut his contribution. Providing the instrumental bankroll for most of the album areGreg Leisz (steel guitar, guitars), Keefus Ciancia (keyboards),Patrick Warren (keyboards for the 50.A. sessions),Jay Bellerose (drums) andDave Piltch (bass).

TRACKLIST:

1. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow – feat.Gillian Welch &David Rawlings

2. Apache Tears – feat.Emmylou Harris w/The Milk Carton Kids

3. Custer – feat.Steve Earle west/The Milk Carton Kids

4. The Talking Leaves – feat.Nancy Blake w/Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings

5. The Ballad ofIra Hayes – feat.Kris Kristofferson w/Gillian Welch &David Rawlings

6. Drums – feat.Norman Blake due west/Nancy Blake,Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &David Rawlings

7. Apache Tears (Reprise) – feat.Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings

8. White Girl – feat. The Milk Carton Kids

9. The Vanishing Race – feat.Rhiannon Giddens

10. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (Reprise) – feat.Nancy Blake,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings

11. Look Again to The Current of air – feat. Nib Miller

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Source: http://billmiller.co/look-again-to-the-wind/

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