Like American V<\/i>, American VI: Ain\u2019t No Grave<\/i> is a posthumous Johnny Cash release consisting of songs that Cash put to tape after the release of American IV<\/i> in 2002. And with no little irony, a posthumous album named after Cash\u2019s rendition of the traditional spiritual, \u201cAin’t No Grave (Gonna Hold My Body Down)” is a cold slap in the face seven years after his demise.<\/p>\n
It is said that American VI<\/i> will be the final installment in the American series. That is assuming that new tracks from that period are not dug up from somewhere. Unlike American V<\/i>, this album feels more like a collection of leftovers than a cohesive package of songs. This disc only contains 10 songs, making it feel a little short, and the final track of \u201cAloha Oe\u201d really feels like a cast off. But the slide guitar and foot stomping invocations of \u201cAin\u2019t No Grave\u201d are moving, making it feel like something produced by T Bone Burnett. Cash sings with conviction, if with a wavering voice due his ailments, on \u201cRedemption Day\u201d and \u201cLast Night I Had The Strangest Dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cash delves deep into the spiritual songs here. \u00a0In addition to the title track, his original \u201cI Corinthians 15:55\u201d with its refrain of the verse \u201cO death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?\u201d holds deeper meaning since it is among the final songs from a man long gone.\u00a0 \u201cSatisfied Mind\u201d has been knocking around in Southern and country gospel for decades, but given all the struggles that Cash had with addiction and finances, it sounds like an emotional autobiography. The wilting “Can’t Help but Wonder Where I’m Bound” seems to inject that seed of doubt about the next stage of life.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Considering how far Johnny Cash had slipped in his career during the late \u201870s and into the \u201880s, the American series completely rehabilitated his musical image. Without the American recordings, I don\u2019t believe Cash would have nearly the amount of respect in the country music world as he now holds. His early hits are enduring, but Rick Rubin and American provided him a vehicle for his later original works and the artistic latitude to stretch beyond the boxes that he felt he was in while with Columbia and Mercury. Taken as a whole, the American series is an enduring, classic run of albums that will hold up just as well as his Sun and early Columbia albums do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":32053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5664],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-43806","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-johnny-cash","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43806"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}