Int CMM April79

"His story and his accomplishments are too familiar to tell again, but the man himself is something else. Once a prisoner of fame, he traveled towards middle age as the very definition of uptown country respectability, the Country Music Association's symbol of class. In those, recent years, he seemed like a rock, immobile, dignified, and maybe also slightly bored. But now it's plain that this period, like his lost days in the early 1960's was a phase. Today Johnny Cash has regained his freedom. His new album, Gone Girl is a clear reflection of that freedom. In this exclusive Country Music interview, Cash speaks frankly to Patrick Carr about the change and how it feels.

Cash was not like I thought he would be. Yes, he was big and charismatic and hot with the nervous energy that is his key to other people's attention, but he was also loose, funny, and very much alive. That, the first time I met him in earnest, was some four or f five years ago. Maybe his mood had something to do with the fact that he was recording with his old room mate Waylon Jennings for the first time, and with his old producer/songwriter Jack "Cowboy" Clement for the first time since Sun days; certainly, it betokened something good in the wind for music fans.

This time around with Cash, it was obvious from the start that with his best album in more than a decade under his belt, he had committed himself back to fun and music with all his heart. When you think about it, you have to say that after all, he had more staying power, more strength, than any of those Sun boys.

We began, of course, by talking about music.

Carr: The last time we talked, John, you spoke about making albums more like the old Johnny Cash.... You know, without a lot of fancy orchestration and stuff.

Cash: Yes, well, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make it sound a bit more like something that was done today, rather than back in 1955, but we had a lot of things going on the Gone Girl album. First of all we had fun making it, we enjoyed it. We had my people that I enjoy working with...The Carter Family, Jan Howard, my group...and Jack Clement came in and played rhythm guitar. He's always a ball on sessions....or usually, anyway. Yes, we enjoyed doing the album.

Larry Butler had been busy producing some big hit artist, and about the time that I wanted to do the album he was right in the middle of it. I had to wait a while, and I got a little frustrated, and he knew I got a little frustrated, and finally we got together on a date. We didn't have words or anything, but I wanted in the studio. You know...when I wanted in, I wanted in.

The album came after a trip that June and Jan Howard and Jack Clement and I took to New York City. We went up and saw a couple of plays, and we sat up at night and picked and sang, and we got into some old songs like A Bar With No Beer and Careless Love and A/ways A/one and Born To Lose, all those old things. Then we got into bluegrass, up tempo stuff. Then we got to doing Jagger and Richard's song No Expectations, and Jack said "Let's do it bluegrass style." I said, "It don't quite fit bluegrass style, but let's do it up tempo," so we got to doing No Expectations. Jan Howard knew it...she'd sung it before on the Grand Ole Opry...so she gave us the words for it. So we sang No Expectations perhaps forty times during the whole evening, and when we quit singing it the people next door- called the room and said, "Please play some more!" We thought we'd been keeping everybody up.

That's the kind of spirit we had in the studio when we recorded the album...you know, we were having fun.

The musicians know that, too, see. It's awfully important to the musicians to feel that the artist is not acting like a star and not acting like the boss; he's acting like somebody that you're having fun with. That's what my guys felt in that studio that day. They were talking and laughing and cutting up and kidding Jack Clement about this and that, trying to make him balance a glass on the top of his head and do different kinds of dances. So we just had a lot of fun. Everybody was loose and laughing, and that's what helped to make it work.

But way before that I did a lot of homework. I weeded out a whole lot of songs. There were a lot of songs I didn't record on that album that I wanted to record, because I've been looking for good songs. You know who I've been listening to a lot? Tom T. Hall. Tom T. Hall has got to be the greatest country songwriter alive. I went to the K-Mart to buy a Tom T. Hall album the other day, just to hear some more of his songs. So I've got some of his songs laid back that I want to do...things he did on albums and didn't release as singles. But he's got so much great stuff.

It's not only him, either. There's other people like Rodney Crowell. Rodney has some good songs, and I'm holding some of his. I wanted to do some more of his on the album, but I didn't have room for them. So I'm looking forward to my next album, and I'm going to do my homework before I go in. And if everybody's not enjoying themselves and having fun when we get in the studio, then we'll just go home.

Carr: Cancel the session?

Cash: Right. After all these years, I realize that it's not especially the quality of the studio, who's got the best equipment, who's got the best sound. Jack Clement Studio happens to have a great sound and great equipment, which is why I picked that studio at that time, but I may do another session at the old Quonset Hut, Columbia Studio B, where I recorded so many times. I think I may do my next album there, because it'd be like memory time for me. Back in the Sixties I was there so many times with the Statler Brothers and the Carter Family and my group, back in times when I was having my own particular kind of fun and everyone else was sitting around waiting for old Johnny Cash to get ready to record...but now I think we could go back in there and have a good time. We may go back there, or we may go back to Jack Clement's studio, but either way . . .

Carr: The key to it all is atmosphere, right?

Cash: Exactly. Well, first of all, there's the songs. So I'm going to do my homework. Do a lot of listening to Tom T. Hall and Rodney Crowell and some other people.

Carr: What other people?

Cash: Well, I really like John Prine and Steve Goodman. I got two of their songs I'm going to try, see if the feeling's right. I've got several songs myself. I've been writing like crazy. I've got enough for an album of my own things that I've written since we did the Gone Girl album.

Carr: Things sound good. Sounds like you're really cooking these days....

Cash: Well, you know I've sold my recording studio 'cause I never was interested in it in the first place. I don't know why I ever wanted one out here. I guess I do, too: because I could get Charlie Bragg to run it, and I believed in him as an engineer. But now we've gotten rid of that studio, which became kind of a burden, and Charlie's got a good job somewhere else, and the girls downstairs are turning it into a museum...which leaves me free. I guess that's it. That's another word that is important in this, too, Patrick. I feel free, you know. If I want to go to California and record, I'll do it. I'm not saying I will, but I might.

Carr: It's getting some of that big Cash load off your back, all those responsibilities....

Cash: That's right. They're usually the ones I want to bear anyway, but things like that studio you look back on and say, "Hey, that was a status symbol, an ego trip. What'd I do that for? That was stupid, don't do that no more." But I'm

free, you see. I'm free to go where I want to and record with whoever I want to.

Carr: That seems to be the direction you've been heading in for the last three years or so.

Cash: Yes. Freedom is the word. Not only that kind of freedom we were talking about, but freeing yourself from ideas and preconceived notions about what is expected of you. I forgot all of that crap. Forget about that I don't think about what is expected of me anymore. I'm doing what I feel is right for me.

For instance, I have people who say to me, "I want you to sound like you did in 1955 on Sun." I can't sing that way any more, and people don't record that way any more. Well, there's one cut on the Gone Girl album, I Will Rock & Roll With You, where I asked them to put that old Sun slapback on, and it's pretty much got that old Sun sound. So we'll give them a little bit of that if they ask for it, if people want to hear it. I mean, I can do that electronically. But honesty in performance and freedom of delivery, that's where it's at. I feel free in the studio now. I wish I could go back in and do the Gone Girl album over again, and if I did, do you know what I'd do? I'd do it exact/y the way I did.

Carr: Has Jack Clement had much to do with this kind of spirit in you?

Cash: Well, I haven't seen him in about two months, but I'm going to call him and pick his brains and see what kind of songs he's got. Jack has got so many great songs that he's forgotten about, you know, and I have to sit down with him and swap songs. "Hey, here's one I wrote that I forgot about!" he'll say, and he'll sing this song that you know should have been a hit when he wrote it. So I'm going to sit down with Jack and see if he's got anything else I might record, and then I'm probably going to ask him to come play rhythm with me again, 'cause I like to work with him. As a matter of fact, Jack Clement asked me to produce his next album.

Carr: Really? That's a switch, isn't it?

Cash: Yeah, that scared me so bad I haven't even answered him yet. I said, "What do you mean, produce you?" He said, "Oh come down and sit in and play rhythm with me and tell me when I'm doing something wrong." I said, "Man, you sure are giving me too much credit here. I'm not a producer. I don't want to be a producer." He said, "Well, just come on down, sit in with me and play rhythm with me." I said, ,'AII right, I'll do that."

Carr: John, how did all this freedom business start? I mean, you really weren't like this a few years ago.

Cash: You know what? It's just going back to the basics of what it was like back before all the big years of success and all that stuff. It was freedom, and I'm just looking for that freedom again. I've seen that in people like Waylon. Waylon is more free inside, and free from the business world of the music business, than anybody I know. He demands his privacy, demands exclusiveness to be not involved in everything going around. I guess maybe that my late association with people like Waylon...like, I learned a lot from Waylon. I mean, I can handle people. I like people, and I can handle them by the dozen...you know, when they come to the shows, I can handle them backstage and all that...but Waylon handles them with so much patience because he knows that tomorrow, ain't nobody in the world gonna be able to find him because he's going to be hiding out resting somewhere. Tomorrow, everybody in the world will know where Johnny Cash is, 'cause I'll have a commitment somewhere. That's the way it's been, but I've become a little bit harder to get to. Maybe I'm going through the change of life or something, but I want more time for myself, and I want more freedom from worry and work and the hassle that goes on at the offices and the recording studios.

Carr: It's showing in the music, you know.

Cash: Well, I hope it'll show more the next time around. Like I said, if the feeling's not there, we won't record. We won't do it until the feeling is there.

Carr: What about working with Waylon? Are you still getting him into the studio with you?

Cash: Well, he and I have done two more songs, but the record companies are having a hassle over who's going to release it. We just did a duet that RCA Victor gave CBS permission to release, but I don't know about Waylon's status with his record company, so I don't know if that song's going to be released or not. So we got two things we're holding, and we don't have any plans to record anything more right now. We have talked about sometime doing an album if we can get enough songs that feel right, but we don't have enough songs yet. I don't talk to Waylon very often, really, 'cause he travels like I do.

Carr: What do you think about what Car/ Perkins is doing these days, John?

Cash: I think it's great. He's really hot again in England. 01' Blue Suede Shoes Is Back, that's a great album. Carl Perkins is better than he's ever been. He was always great, but now he's better than he's ever been, 'cause he's free too, you know? For a long time he was the opener for the Johnny Cash Show, and I never did feel right about it. I never did feel right about having an artist of his stature in that position. But that's what he wanted, and it worked for a long time. When he went off on his own is when he really came into his own, though. He's terrific. He's got it all together, in his head and his heart;

Carr: He's sort of like you seem to be right now...he's got his family and his music, and he's doing what he wants to do. He's free to play.

Cash: Yes, sir. He's the best there is, in his field.

Carr: You think things are loosening up in the country music business in general, John? Last time I asked you that, about two years ago, you said basically that maybe they were, but you weren't too sure.

Cash: I don't know. I don't read the trades. I look at the charts every week if Cashbox or Billboard or Record World happens to be on my desk, but I don't really know what direction country music is going in. I'm really concerned with which direction I'm going in. .

Carr: Maybe you're pulling back from your role as figurehead of the country music business?

Cash: I didn't know that's what I was. I don't know what that means, really.

Carr: Yes. No good asking you that these days, is it?

Cash: They keep asking me every year to host the annual CMA Awards Show, and I kind of hope they don't ask me any more. I get a little embarrassed. Really, I keep thinking some of my peers are going to say, "Hey, what? We got to have him again?" But the network keeps asking for me. I enjoy doing it, but I know there's that other world of country music out there that is as important to the people as that CMA world. It's a weird thing for someone like me to say, but I know that there's two worlds of country music out there now. There's that CMA world and there's that other world.

Carr: What's the other world?

Cash: Well, there's Waylon and Willie and all the guys that you don't see on the CMA...great artists like Marty Robbins, Webb Pierce, Carl Smith, Ferlin Husky, Faron Young, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow. All these are great, great country artists, and you don't see them on the CMA show. You don't see them as a guest or a presenter, even. The network is looking for names, for ratings, and they don't realize how important some of these names really are. But there's no greater country singer than Marty Robbins, and I've asked the last two years to get Marty Robbins on the show, and I get some kind of runaround. And I'm not really all that happy to be the host of the show for that reason. Tom T. Hall...have you ever seen Tom T. Hall on that show? That's what bugs me. That's what really gets to me, that the agent and I will talk it over, and he'll say, "Well, what do you recommend I do?" and he'll say, "Well, you're the only one that means anything to them ratings-wise." I say, "Well, I don't believe that." Then we'll talk about the people that are going to be on it. I'll say, "Are they going to have any of the people on it that they've neglected in the past?" He'll say, "I don't have anything to do with that." Then I'll finally get around to talking to the producer. "Oh, the talent's already set for the show."

That's about as far as I get. I guess it's about time that I did let them know that I'm really galled that they don't have great people like Tom T. Hall and Marty Robbins and Ferlin Husky on there. I mean, Ferlin Husky's an entertainer. He's one of the greatest the business ever had. And just 'cause he doesn't have a hot record right now doesn't mean he's not important. There's a lot of them out there that are important.

Then there's the other world of country music like Waylon and Willie or Charlie Daniels...oh, Charlie was on there this year...and the other guys who couldn't care less about the CMA or anything else that goes on, only with what they're doing and the way they want to do it, like I am right now. The way I feel about the Gone Girl album is I guess the way these guys feel about most everything in the business ..."If it don't feel right, I ain't going to get in it." I get into a lot of things in the music business that don't feel right but I get involved in them because of who I am. Whatever that means.

Carr: How do you feel about Jimmy Carter these days, John.

Cash: I'm not going to talk to you about politics.

Carr: Can I press you on one point? When we last talked, you said that you hoped Jimmy Carter might just bring back a sense of honesty and Christian values to this country. Do you think that has happened, if only a little?

Cash: Well, it's happened to me personally, and it's happened to a lot of people around me. Jimmy Carter's been up and down in the polls, but I think he's been as good a President as a President can be. I can't imagine any man even being able to handle the job in the first place. Any man that can bear it and keep grinning like he does has to be quite a man. But I don't believe that he's directly responsible for any great Christian revival...no. There's been a lot written about his being born again, and it's become a joke in a lot of areas...even though it's not a joke, it's a spiritual truth...but no, no great spiritual revival has taken place in this country that I can see. As a matter of fact, I've seen more decadence in the last couple of years than I've ever seen before in my whole life, I believe.

But the churches are full. But you know what, Patrick? I read a book recently called In His Steps. It was written in 1896, and in this book the man talks about the Church and how it separates itself from the very ones who need it most...the poor, the needy...and this preacher challenges his congregation in this book to go out next week and do it as Jesus would do it. Whatever you do, whatever you say, you ask yourself, "Is this the way Jesus would do it?" and see what comes about. So there

was a lot of people in the congregation took the challenge, and started going out among the poor people and giving them food packages. They started putting their Christianity into action. Stopped separating themselves in their beautiful white sepulcher of a church from the poor people, the hungry people in the slums and the ghettos. Like I say, the churches are full, but the slums and the ghettos are still full, and for the most part, the churches and the needy haven't quite gotten together yet. And until more people in the Church realize the real needs of the people, and go out rather than going in . . . I mean, to go into church is great, but to go out and put it all into action, that's where it's all at. And I haven't seen a lot of action.

Carr: One of the things I've always liked about you is that you are a committed Christian, and yet you still work and hang around with people who might be considered backsliders or might have supposedly non-Christian habits. Funky musicians, you know? And you seem to be able to inhabit both worlds.

Cash: Well, it's not like going both ways. I don't compromise. I don't compromise my religion. If I'm with someone who doesn't want to talk about it, I don't talk about it. I don't impose myself on anybody in any way, including religion. When you're imposing you're offending, I feel. Although I am evangelical and I'll give the message to anyone that wants to hear it, or anybody that is willing to listen. But if they let me know that they don't want to hear it, they ain't ever going to hear it from me. If I think they don't want to hear it, then I will not bring it up.

It's something that Waylon and I have never discussed, and we're the best of friends. We've got into some deep subjects, like...well, we got into religion a little bit; not much, but we got into some deep.stuff. I never got into it with Kristofferson, really. Even when I was doing Gospel Road and he was around, we really didn't talk about it much cause, you know, some people are uncomfortable talking about it. But back to how Jesus did it, He was that way, and I'm just trying to be like him.

Carr: John, is there anything you'd like to say about Mother Maybelle?

Cash: Mother Maybelle Carter. I still get choked up. She was my fishing buddy. That was my relationship with her. I've just lost an old buddy. That's it, and I don't have too much to say. She was the greatest. She was the first and the greatest, and the music world will slowly but surely begin playing its tributes to her by people recording everything she ever wrote and recorded

Carr: I was talking to Carl Perkins the day after she died, and he said much the same thing. He said that when he was on the road with you, he and Mother Maybelle used to sit up at night playing cards, and that's how he'd always think of her.

Cash: I did a lot of that. We'd play poker. We'd sit up all night playing poker with Mother Maybelle.

Carr: What about Elvis, John? Any last words on Elvis

Cash: Well, what has not been said? Elvis was the greatest in his field, of course. I'd always admired him: Every show before I went in, I'd always watch every minute of his show from the side. But I didn't see Elvis for the last eighteen years of his life, so I didn't know him that well.

Carr: What did the commercialization after his death do to you?

Cash: Well, I didn't go out and buy a bunch of posters and junk they were selling but it's something I expected. I'll tell you what it's done, though...it's got him a whole new world of fans. Little kids. Every little kid loves Elvis Presley. Kids John Carter's age, eight years old. I take him to school, he's singing A 11 Shook Up or Jailhouse Rock or something, every day. Every little kid knows Elvis.

Carr: Sounds sort of like 1953 all over again.

Cash: No, I'm talking about little bitty kids, you know?

Carr: Well, it makes a change from John Travolta, eh?

Cash: Right.