Various Artists: Johnny Cash: Artist’s Choice

Johnny Cash loved good songwriting. Labels never mattered. As his voluminous catalogue of recorded music demonstrates, he was just as comfortable singing his own tunes, songs by the great country, folk and blues writers and even those by alternative bands like Soundgarden. If the song was good, he was willing to give it a try.

So I was heavy with expectation when I dropped Johnny Cash: Artist’s Choice, a Hear Music compilation released by Sony Music/Columbia Records and distributed through Starbucks Coffee stores.

Those expectations, however, were only partially met. It’s not so much that the disc lacks the musical adventurism of Cash’s brilliant work over the last decade with American Records, or the commitment to great songs that has always set him above the rest of the country-music establishment.

There is a good bit of that here. My disappointment stems from a handful of tracks — three, in particular — that fail to deliver on what starts off as an interesting glimpse into Cash’s musical mind and weigh down an otherwise solid package.

Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. The other discs in the series — featuring selections by Sheryl Crow, the Rolling Stones, Lucinda Williams, Ray Charles, Yo-Yo Ma and Tony Bennett — all demonstrate, to some degree, similar failings.

According to the Starbucks Web site, the artists are interviewed “about music that inspires them, the music they grew up with, the CD that’s in their car stereo right now, and what they think is the saddest song in the world. We do this because we think it’s important to know that Lyle Lovett wanted to be Willis Alan Ramsey, that Tom Waits would choose the Pogues to listen to as he drove across Texas, which album Elvis Costello feels is as compulsory to own as the Bible, and which song makes Lucinda Williams have to pull over to the side of the road.”

Some lofty goals that, on the surface at least, seem legitimate. As a listener and music fan, I’ve always been interested in what the folks I’m listening to have been listening to and what they recommend.

In practice, however, the discs have not offered the kinds of insights one might expect. Sheryl Crow, on her disc, mostly opts for the standard, singer-songwriter fair: James Taylor, Carol King, Rod Stewart and such (though she does include a live version of the Staples Singers doing “The Weight”) — not exactly news to anyone who has ever listened to Crow’s music — while the Rolling Stones give us a rundown of their blues roots.

Which brings me back to the Man in Black.

There are few surprises on Cash’s Artist’s Choice disc, though it is an eminently listenable affair, featuring some of the best country tunes ever recorded, with a smattering of efforts from other, related performers, and a pair of gospel songs.

That Cash’s primary interest is country songs is not surprising. He is, after all, one of the most important voices in the history of the genre. But his recent exploration of other song styles for American Records might have led one to expect a broader selection of songs.

That he not only was willing to record Tom Petty, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, and the Smashing Pumpkins, but was able to transform them into trademark Johnny Cash records is a testament to his greatness.

On Artist’s Choice, Cash presents us with a short history of the kind of country music to which he is drawn, ranging from the plaintive yodel of Hank Williams and the commercial gloss of Eddy Arnold, to the story songs of Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins, and Kris Kristofferson. The disc also features Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, a surprisingly striking version of the Eagles’ “Desperado” by Linda Ronstadt and the lovely, powerful “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” by Mahalia Jackson. These songs easily are the disc’s highlights, offering a glimpse into the kind of songs, songwriting, and performances that made Cash what he was.

At the same time, however, there are a couple of curious choices, such as Roberta Flack’s version of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, a clichéd ballad that suffers from a drawn out, interminably measured pace. Or the Chad Mitchell Trio’s rather lifeless “Four Strong Winds”, a song that was far too typical of the college folk revival of the early ’60s. And Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” just doesn’t hold up very well 35 years after its release.

In his liner notes, Cash comments on each tune, explaining its significance to him and the reason why it makes its appearance on Artist’s Choice.

In his comments on Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues”, he explains that he had been made to take voice lessons by his mother when he learned an important lesson. He had been tussling with his teacher over his singing style, which — reading between the lines of his comments — apparently was not what his teacher through was appropriate.

“We came to a point, my voice teacher and I, where she was kind of ready to throw up her hands because I was not going to budge from the way I was singing,” he says. “And she said, ‘Okay, sing something you like.’ So I sang Hank Williams’ ‘Lovesick Blues’. And she put down her books and closed them up and said, ‘Don’t ever let anybody try to give you voice lessons again.’ And so that was the beginning of my professional career, I guess. Singing it like I want to, you know?”

There are interesting bits like this throughout the liner notes. His love for Eddy Arnold’s music growing up making the country crooner “the standard of comparison for me”; his desire to record Marty Robbins’s “Big Iron”. He tells the story of how he brought Kristofferson to the Newport Folk Festival, helping to launch his career as a singer and how he considers Springsteen one of his favorite singers and songwriters.

Three songs stand out on the disc, bearing further mention. First, Cash’s decision to use Kristofferson’s version of “Me and Bobbie McGee”, rather than the more famous Janis Joplin version, had struck me at first as a mistake. After all, the Joplin version has come to be the definitive version, somehow mixing joy and sorrow and acting as a commentary on the closing of the 1960s. The Kristofferson version had always seemed a bit weaker to me, slower, almost too sad, but after several listenings — bracketed by Robbins’s “Big Iron” and Kristofferson’s own “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)” — I came to appreciate the bittersweet nostalgia in Kristofferson’s restrained vocal and the subtle harmonica line that hangs in the mix.

Then there is “Desperado”, a solid country-rock song when recorded by the Eagles on Desperado, but somehow transformed into something more when Ronstadt’s lush soprano is wrapped around it. (Cash’s own version, recorded with Don Henley, is a highlight of his own The Man Comes Around.)

The song choice that says the most about Cash, however, is Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin'”, Dylan’s bitter indictment of American politics, recorded in the wake of the Kennedy assassination and released just seven months before the Johnson Administration would use the Gulf of Tonkin incident to rush America into the Vietnam War. Cash was an anomaly among country artists in the 1960s, coming out against the war, singing to prisoners and advocating American Indian rights, while also staunchly defending the dignity of those doing the fighting. Cash called the “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” “A prophetic song whose prophecies definitely came true.”

And his inclusion of the Dylan song on the disc reminds us of something just as important. Cash had always been a supporter of those musicians he believed in, using his platform as a popular country entertainer to break down genre walls, and introducing Dylan and others to country fans via his television series.

Ultimately, as attested to by his liner notes on this selection, Cash understood something about Dylan that it took the rest of us far too long to understand. He “was the best hillbilly singer I ever heard”.

Overall, even if it doesn’t provide anything more than an interesting glimpse into Cash’s record collection, Artist’s Choice does offer an enjoyable 50-or-so minutes of music, which is not to bad when all is said and done.