» Listings for 2023

1. 2023 Albums Thing #066 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “The Good Son”

   Posted on 11:50am Saturday 1st Apr 2023

   I’m reasonably certain “The Good Son” was the first thing I heard by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. I’m also fairly certain it would have been on a tour bus, far from home, late at night or more likely in the wee small hours of the morning. Cos, as magnificent as this album is, it’s not one for playing on a bright sun-shiney day while you’re sipping cocktails with your pals. Like much of Nick Cave’s work there is a dark beauty smothering it all.

   It’s a concise record, just 9 songs (plus 3 more if you’re lucky enough to own the bonus 7”, which I do) but there’s not a bad one among the 9. The titles say a lot about the content “Foi Na Cruz” (Portuguese for “(it was) On The Cross”), “Sorrow’s Child”, “The Weeping Song” and “Lament” give you an idea. That’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom, “The Ship Song” is a genuinely uplifting melody, in fact luscious melodies are this albums trade.

   “The Good Son” was written and recorded in Brazil where Cave was living and had gone through rehab. The subject matter is in the main concerned with that and his new romantic interest, a Brazilian journalist. It’s much more sedate an album than his previous two, “Your Funeral…My Trial” and “The Tender Prey”. The latter of those two is a more twitchy, almost paranoid partner to “The Good Son” (PS “The Tender Prey” opens with “The Mercy Seat” which was brilliantly covered by Johnny Cash. Both are worthy of your time and effort). You can feel the search for a calmer life in these songs, bought about (maybe ?) by the rehab.

   A number of the songs are based on other (traditional) compositions, “Foi Na Cruz” on a Brazilian hymn, the title track on the African-American chain-gang song "Another Man Done Gone" mixed up with the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, “The Witness Song” on American gospel song "Who Will be a Witness?" (also an influence on Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get A Witness”). The Bad Seeds are in brilliant form throughout and guitarist Blixa Bargeld’s duet with Cave on “The Weeping Song” is equal parts ominous and hilarious. “The Ship Song” is a rare thing indeed, a delicately performed ballad but strident in its melody and a complete admission of all encompassing adoration. The closing “Lucy” is as sad as it is joyful. 

   “The Good Son” is the start of a run of albums by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds over the next 15 years that are breathtaking in their quality and sheer brilliance at times, I’d advise you to check out any of them if you find yourself liking this. Oh and for info, the reason there are 4 songs on here titled The “something” Song (Weeping, Ship, Hammer and Witness songs) is, they never got around to titling them properly so stuck with their working titles.

   The Ship Song - https://youtu.be/T0spQCw35D4

2. 2023 Albums Thing #065 - Johnny Cash “The Essential Johnny Cash”

   Posted on 9:20am Friday 31st Mar 2023

   It doesn’t really matter which Johnny Cash “Best Of” collection you get, they will all have something missing purely because his recording career spanned almost 50 years. This one covers the 21 years from 1955 to 1976 which means there is nothing from the ensuing 27 years up to his death in 2003. So what you don’t get on here is anything like “Hurt”, a song that introduced Johnny Cash to a whole new audience in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. This is a trail back through Johnny’s “early” history.

   I got my liking for Johnny Cash from my Dad. He had a couple of his records that I remember from when I was young. I’m guessing Dad liked the more radical songs of which there aren’t so many on here outside of “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes” (hey it’s a greatest hits cash in what did you expect ?). It would have been good for balance to include some of his more politically charged songs, something like “Singing’ In Talking’ Vietnam Blues” would have sat well. What you do get here is all the big hits (“Ring Over Fire”, “I Walk the Line”,  “A Boy Named Sue” etc.) but you do also get some lesser heralded gems like Johnny’s take on Kris Kristofferson’s incredible “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and his version of Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country”.

   Personal favourites for me would be “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town” a song America should maybe pay closer attention to right now, “The One On The Right Is On The Left” an hilarious look at a folk group with differing political views ending with the advice “Now this should be a lesson if you plan to start a folk group, Don't go mixin' politics with the folk songs of our land”, and “Jackson” sung in duet with his wife June Carter-Cash.

   I like that my Johnny Cash albums sit in my collection right beside the next artist we’ll be talking about as he was obviously a great influence upon him. I guess soon will come a time when Johnny Cash, like Elvis Presley and others before him, will hold no relevance for people. It’ll be a great shame but it happens. But what should never be forgotten is that Johnny Cash was as important to American music as Elvis or Gershwin or Sinatra or Motown or any of the greats, and this record goes a little way toward explaining why.

   Sunday Morning Coming Down - https://youtu.be/8_xd5jG3JTA

3. 2023 Albums Thing #064 - Johnny Cash “At San Quentin”

   Posted on 9:40am Thursday 30th Mar 2023

   Johnny Cash’s second live album and second recorded at a prison. San Quentin had been contacted at the same time as Folsom but hadn’t responded as quickly. This concert was filmed to be included in a documentary made by Granada TV in the UK about Johnny and his prison concerts. 

   It’s a shorter album than “Folsom Prison” (10 tracks against 16) but to my ears it’s a better set and Johnny is more engaged with the audience. For a shorter album it’s therefore strange that they put 2 versions of the same song on here, one after the other to start Side 2, but it does show what a good time singer and audience were having and I’m sure playing the newly written “San Quentin” in front of all those guards and wardens and watching the prisoners reaction to it gave Johnny a kick.

   “Hey what are you guys drinking in those tall purple cups ? What is that rot gut stuff ?”

   This album was recorded on 24 February 1969 so just a year or so after Folsom. In that time Cash’s long time guitar player Luther Perkins (that was Luther knocking out those chikka-boom guitar lines on Johnny’s greatest hits) had passed away and this is referred to in the set. Cash also mentions to the audience that the gig is being recorded for the UK (he says England) and him being told you gotta do this song and that song and how that’s not how it’s gonna be, he’s there for the prisoners and then asks for requests before bursting into “I Walk The Line”. The famous image of an angry-looking Cash giving the middle finger gesture to a camera comes from this performance. It happened when he got upset that the TV cameras were intruding between him and the audience.

   “I’ve been here 3 times before. I think I understand a little bit how you feel about some things, it’s none of my business how you feel about some other things and I don’t give a damn how you feel about some other things”

   June Cash joins him on “Darling Companion” along with Sun Records stablemate Carl Perkins. Side 2 has those two runs thru “San Quentin” with the prisoners cheering lustily at appropriate lines (“San Quentin you've been living hell to me”, “San Quentin I hate every inch of you” and “San Quentin may you rot and burn in hell” eliciting particularly enthusiastic responses), an absolutely rollicking “A Boy Named Sue” (the line “My name is Sue, how do you do? Now you gonna die" raising enough of a cheer to suggest there may be a few murderers in the crowd who particularly enjoyed their “trade” !), the gospel tune “Peace In The Valley” calms the atmosphere a little and everything wraps up with “Folsom Prison Blues”.

   There’s a lot of dialogue on this album. It gives you an inkling about the sort of person Johnny Cash was and definitely lets you know how the inmates felt about Johnny, and the steam being blown off by the audience adds to the whole atmosphere. Most reviews you’ll read put “At Folsom Prison” ahead of this one but to me this is much the better record. Hey, we’ve all got different ears right ?

   San Quentin - https://youtu.be/ARI42-dv1Mw