American Recordings Four
Man Comes Around 
 Winner  For the CMA Awards
November 5, 2003

Cash's American 4 CD, Man Comes Around Goes Platinum

Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around marks the first platinum studio album of his career, certified for shipment of a million copies. American IV won the CMA album of the year in November and has been packaged with a DVD of the award-winning video "Hurt." Multi-platinum Cash albums include At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin, and several hits albums have been certified platinum. 12/4/03

The nominees for the 37^th annual Country Music Awards include plenty of men – every last one of the nominees for Entertainer of the year, the Horizon award and several other categories are certified, grade-A-Males. But two men in particular are in this year’s spotlight. One is Toby Keith, who leads the pack with seven nominations, including a nod for entertainer. The other, of course, is Johnny Cash, the towering icon who passed away Sept. 12, 2003 Fans and industry insiders alike will be watching carefully t see how he is remembered – and how many awards he wins. He’s nominated in four categories, all announced well before his death. 

Johnny Cash’s Four Nominations 

1. Single Of The Year – Johnny Cash “Hurt”
2. Album Of The Year  - Johnny Cash “Man Comes Around
3. Music Video – Johnny Cash “Hurt”
4. Vocal Event Of The Year – The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Johnny Cash – Tears In The Holston River

American Recordings Four"

Man Comes Around
 Winner  For Grammy Awards

December 10th 2003 

Among the nominees in the Country Field, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash both earned nominations posthumously and Willie Nelson earned multiple nods, competing against himself in two categories (Best Country Collaboration With Vocals and Best Country Album). Carter Cash's recording "Keep On The Sunny Side" will vie for Best Female Country Vocal

AMERICAN IV: THE MAN COMES AROUND GOES GOLD.
The RIAA has certified Johnny's Grammy Award winning album Gold for achieving sales of 500,000 units. The album has spent nearly six months on both the Billboard Top 200 and Country charts as well.

Grammy Winner  #11
Best Male Country Vocal Performance
(For a solo vocal performance. Singles or Tracks only.)

Give My Love To Rose
Johnny Cash
Track from: American IV: The Man Comes Around
[American Recordings/Lost Highway Records]

CATEGORY 37 BEST COUNTRY MALE VOCAL PERFORMANCE
Give My Love To Rose AM IV Johnny Cash

CATEGORY 39 BEST COUNTRY COLLABORATION W/VOCALS
Bridge Over Troubled Water AM IV
Johnny Cash & Fiona Apple

Flesh & Blood KINDRED SPIRITS
Mary Chapin Carpenter,
Sheryl Crow & Emmylou Harris

CATEGORY 67 BEST CONTEMPORARY FOLK ALBUM
AMERICAN IV: MAN COMES ROUND
Johnny Cash

CATEGORY 90 PRODUCER OF THE YEAR
Rick Rubin
AMERICAN IV
Give My love to Rose
Hurt
Personal Jesus
(and few Red Hot Chili Peppers songs)

GRAMMY AWARDS WILL BE SATURDAY FEB 22nd 8pm ET/CBS

American IV: The Man Comes Around  

Platinum Album

CD Due To Be Released November  2001 
Pre-Order Now !!!

The Man Comes Around
Hurt
Give My Love to Rose
Bridge Over Troubled Water
I Hung My Head
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Personal Jesus
In My Life
Sam Hall
Danny Boy
Desperado
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
The Streets of Laredo
Tear Stained Letter
We'll Meet Again  
Big Iron - Bonus Track Vinyl Only 
Wichita Lineman - Bonus Track Vinyl Only 

Album Liner Notes

I am persuaded that nothing can separate me from my love of my God, my wife, and my music. Life is rich when I come home, after hours in the studio, feeling as frayed as a hundred Big G strings, and curl up to June Carter. She’s a soft, fluffy Mama Bear. That’s when I give God a “Thanks a  Lot , Chief”. Sometimes in the morning I’ll say “Good Morning” to the Awesome Presence, but sometimes I forget to.

Home from the studio, or to the hotel from the studio, depending on where I am, it seals the day’s work when I relate to June what I did that day. But music never stops. It’s an unending loop through my brain. Over and over and over again. Finally my head settled on that particular song, and won’t let go.

I wrote and recorded “The Man Comes Around” early in this project, and for three or four months I recycled that song, over and over, until I’d have to get out of bed, and turn on the radio. It worked for a while, but my inner payback system always went back to “The Man Comes around”.

I spent more time on this song than any other song I ever wrote. It’s based, loosely on the book Revelation, with a couple of lines, or chorus, from other biblical sources> I must have written three dozen pages of lyrics, then painfully weeded it down to song you have here.

The initial idea for the song came from a dream I had seven years ago. I was in Nottingham, England and had bought a book called “Dreaming Of The Queen” the book talked about the great number of people in that country who dream that they are with the Queen Elizabeth #2. I dreamed that I walked into   Buckingham  Palace  , and there she sat, knitting or sewing. She had a basket of fabrics and lace. Another woman sat beside her, and they were talking and laughing. As I approached, the Queen looked up at me and said, “Johnny Cash ! You’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind.” Then of course, I awoke. I realized that “Thorn Tree in a Whirlwind” sounded familiar to me. Eventually I decided that it was biblical, and I found it in the book of Job. From there it grew into a song, and I started lifting things from the book of Revelation. It became “The Man Comes Around”.

“Revelation” by its mere interpretation says that something “is revealed” I wish it were. The more I dug into the book the more I came to realize why it’s such a puzzle, even to many Theologians. Eventually I shuffled my papers, so to speak, drew out four or five pages, and I wrote my lyrics.

The fifteen songs that followed in this album take different directions. I hope you enjoy each one of them

Johnny Cash  August 12, 2002   Hendersonville ,  Tennessee      

Other Current CD Reviews 

AMAZON.COM REVIEW

On first thought, the idea of the Man in Black recording such covers as "Bridge over Troubled Water," "Danny Boy," and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" might seem odd, even for an artist who's been able to put his personal stamp on just about everything. But American IV: The Man Comes Around, which also draws on Cash's original songs as well as those by Nine Inch Nails ("Hurt"), Sting ("I Hung My Head"), and Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus"), may be one of the most autobiographical albums of the 70-year-old singer-songwriter's career.

Nearly every tune seems chosen to afford the ailing giant of popular music a chance to reflect on his life, and look ahead to what's around the corner. From the opening track--Cash's own "The Man Comes Around," filled with frightening images of Armageddon--the album, produced by Rick Rubin, advances a quiet power and pathos, built around spare arrangements and unflinching honesty in performance and subject.

In 15 songs, Cash moves through dark, haunted meditations on death and destruction, poignant farewells, testaments to everlasting love, and hopeful salutes to redemption. He sounds as if he means every word, his baritone-bass, frequently frayed and ravaged, taking on a weary beauty.

By the time he gets to the Beatles' "In My Life," you'll very nearly cry. Go ahead. He sounds as if he's about to, too. Unforgettable. --Alanna Nash

Cash Enlists Apple, Henley
 
Fourth "American" recording includes songs by Paul Simon, Trent Reznor 

Johnny Cash will release his fourth Rick Rubin-produced album, American IV: The Man Comes Around, on November 5th. The fifteen-track album comes just two years after American III: Solitary   Man.   

Again, Cash and Rubin assemble a mix of songs penned by Cash, traditional material, and some more contemporary offerings. Country music past is represented by a cover of  Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," which features a guest vocal by   Nick  Cave  . Fiona Apple sings with Cash on Paul Simon's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and Don Henley guests on his own tune, "Desperado."   

Other tunesmiths covered include Trent Reznor ("Hurt"), Depeche Mode's Martin Gore ("Personal Jesus"), Sting ("I Hung My Head") and John Lennon and Paul McCartney ("In My Life").  

Cash penned four of the songs himself, including a reprise of his classic "Give My Love to Rose," and the new title cut. "It's a gospel song," Cash sideman Marty Stuart said of the song. "It is the most strangely marvelous, wonderful, gothic, mysterious, Christian thing that only God and Johnny Cash could create together."  

Among the musicians who appear on the record are Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusciante, Beck's guitarist Smokey Hormel, Billy Preston, drummer Joey Waronker (R.E.M.), Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and bluegrass/country pickers Randy Scruggs and Marty Stuart.  

Cash and Rubin first began working together on 1994's American Recordings, a solo acoustic recording which featured covers of songs by Nick Lowe, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Glenn Danzig and others. 

C D UNIVERSE REVIEW

Recorded at Cash Cabin,   Nashville , Tennessee and Akademie Mathematique Of Philosphical Sound Research,   Los Angeles , California  . Includes Johnny Cash.
When the first volume of Johnny Cash's AMERICAN series appeared in 1994, it would have been difficult to predict its critical and commercial success, much less the fact that an illness-beset Cash would be turning out a powerful fourth installment of the series eight years later. Like its three predecessors, AMERICAN IV is a home-recorded, bare-bones Rick Rubin production wherein Cash tackles old classics by other writers as well as more contemporary tunes by artists from the rock world, with a smattering of his own new compositions thrown in. It's also arguably the strongest since the first volume.
Now that the novelty of hearing the Man in Black tackle tunes by the likes of Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus" and Nine Inch Nails ("Hurt") has worn off, we can get past the gimmickiness to fully appreciate the power of Cash's soul-baring interpretations. He brings an equal amount of gravitas to old country and folk tunes like "Streets of   Laredo  " and "Give My Love to Rose." To hear Cash's worn, husky, lived-in voice inhabit the world-weary narrative of the Beatles' "In My Life" and the graphic, almost spiritual romance of the Ewan MacColl-penned ballad "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is to be led directly to the heart of these songs' deepest meanings.   

All Music Guide

Johnny Cash's fourth project with producer Rick Rubin continues on the same path as many of their previous releases: Cash's warm and rumbling baritone over minimal production and gentle duets with some surprising guests.

One of the things that sets American IV: The Man Comes Around apart from the others is Cash's song selections. The success he experienced with his previous interpretations of contemporary songwriters (Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage,"   Nick  Cave  's "The Mercy Seat") is applied to this album with varying degrees of success.

His throaty reading of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" easily fits into his "Man in Black" persona, and the spiritual conviction underlying Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" is certainly powerful. Unfortunately, the inclusion of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (featuring a lost- sounding Fiona Apple) and a passionless snooze through the Beatles' "In My Life" should have been so much stronger (given the subject matter of both songs and Cash's prolific life story).

One of the reasons his previous covers were so successful is that in the past he had chosen some pretty obscure songs (Bonnie Prince Billy's "I See a Darkness" and Beck's "Rowboat," to name a couple) and reinterpreted them with his unique perspective and unmistakable voice. However, there is really no need to hear his versions of the Irish standard "Danny Boy" or the clunky rendition of Sting's "I Hung My Head," since something about them just doesn't fit -- either Cash wasn't entirely comfortable with the song or the performance was never fully realized.

Luckily, the new songs Cash wrote for the album are pretty strong, and his cover of the standard "We'll Meet Again" is among the best versions of the song ever recorded. It is a relief to hear that although Cash's voice is clearly older and not the booming powerhouse it was in the earlier Sun and Columbia days, he's still got some punch left in him, and the wisdom he's gained in his later life seeps through between the grooves, revealing a man who has lived through it all and lived to tell the tale..... Zac Johns on 

A.P. News Article 
Posted 1/13/01

Interview With Johnny CASH 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Jamaica's telephone service is capricious, so his voice fades in and out. But Johnny Cash keeps fighting to be heard.

Cash is describing a typical day at his island home: It' beautiful. It's about 75 degrees, sun shining, sea breeze blowing.'' Then he abruptly changes course.
Sorry about you being up there (in Nashville),'' he says, with a guilty laugh. I don't want to go back to that cold. And if you don't have to, you don't have to.''

Cash, 68, is basking in the Jamaican sun - and the glow of two Grammy nominations - just two years after spending 12 days in a coma with deadly
pneumonia. He's nominated for his latest album, American III: Solitary Man,'' in the
contemporary folk album category and for Solitary Man,'' his version of the
Neil Diamond hit, in the male country vocal performance category.


The doctors now tell Cash that he has autonomic neuropathy. He isn't sure
what that means, but he doesn't sound frightened. There's nothing wrong with me,'' he says defiantly. I don't have any
disease. ... It's not doing anything to me, except I'm getting a lot
better. ''Cash, who toured regularly for four decades, is a rare musical talent; t0
broad for any single genre to contain.
His classic hits include early rockabilly sides like Get Rhythm,'' story
songs like ``Don't Take Your Guns to Town,'' meditations on prison like ``I
Got Stripes'' and message songs like “Man in Black”.'' He's made movies and
recorded live albums at prisons. And he gave Bob Dylan and other '60s artists
their first network television exposure on his 1969-71 variety series.

He's a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of
Fame and the winner of a Grammy Legend Award (1990). Only in the 1980s did he falter, when country radio stations turned him away
in favor of younger talent. He abandoned the Nashville music business in
1994, signing with rap-heavy metal producer Rubin's American Recordings. His
three albums with Rubin have been triumphs.

The American Music albums have featured a stripped-down, mostly acoustic
sound. Rubin has pushed Cash to record songs by non-mainstream writers like
Nick Cave and Will Oldham. It's just Cash doing exactly what he wants to do,'' says country singer
Marty Stuart, who played on ``American III: Solitary Man.''
They're done with a living-room atmosphere, catching an American icon in
his natural habitat and seeing what's on his mind. It's very earthy, very organic, very down to earth. It holds on to every
tradition that he ever helped create, but it also busts down the walls of his
future, as only he can do, to kind of help give us a different place to go.''

Cash has made some concessions to age and infirmity, but says he's far from
through. I'm focusing all my time and energy on the creativity, writing and
recording songs for my albums,'' he says. ``That's basically where all my
creative energies go. I haven't taken any offers for television or live performances or
commercials or any such thing for years. ... I don't care to be on video. I
don't care to be on camera. I've had my 40-plus years on the stage. ... After
a while, the suitcases get to be a little heavier.''

He has a home outside Nashville, but spends winters at his Jamaica estate.
There he rises at 5 a.m., reads, writes songs and eats breakfast with his
wife, June Carter. They often drive their golf cart about a mile from their
home to the sea.
In the afternoons, he likes to listen to music; both for pleasure and to look
for songs to record. He's been listening to ``Flatt & Scruggs at Carnegie
Hall,'' The Cathedral Quartet and a box set of the Carter Family.
Of modern country, he likes Trisha Yearwood and the Mavericks.
Sometimes, I'll even listen to Hank Williams Jr's album if I feel like I
can stand the pressure,'' he says jokingly. ``I love him like a brother, but
boy, he comes on strong.''

He's planning a fourth album with Rubin and is excited about going in a heavier'' musical direction. For instance, I may record a real classic spiritual, and I might use an
orchestra on it. There are some things that Rick and I are finding that call
for a little bigger sound. ... I said, `Let's go for it. I am a rockabilly. If nothing else, I am a rockabilly.''

By JIM PATTERSON
 The Associated Press

Cash Unearthed 

Released Date November 25, 2003 

Johnny Cash's Five - CD Box Due Out November 25, 2003

A five-CD box set of Johnny Cash recordings made during his American Recordings era will be released on Nov. 25. Among the 79 cuts will be 64 previously unreleased recordings made by Cash. The remaining tracks are songs from Cash's four American Recordings CDs made with producer Rick Rubin. Included are several unreleased duets, including Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" with Joe Strummer, Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" with Fiona Apple, Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" with Carl Perkins, "Cindy" with Nick Cave and "Like a Soldier" with Willie Nelson. The set also includes a 104-page clothbound book featuring one of Cash's final interviews in which he and Rubin talk about coming together, selecting songs and creating Cash's last recordings. The interview also includes extensive comments from Tom Petty, Rosanne Cash, John Carter Cash, among others, as well as a track-by-track discussion of each song by Cash, Rubin and others.

Track List 

Disc: 1
1. Long Black Veil     2. Flesh & Blood     3. Just The Other Side     4. If I Give My Soul     5. Understand Your Man     6. Banks Of The Ohio     7. Two Timing Woman     8. The Caretaker (fka Who's Gonna Cry)     9. Chunk Of Coal     10. I'm Going To Memphis     11. Breaking Bread     12. Waiting For A Train     13. Casey     14. No Earthly Good     15. The Fourth Man In The Fire     16. Dark As A Dungeon     17. Book Review     18. Down There By The Train    



Disc: 2
1. Pochohantas     2. I'm A Drifter (Version 1, Heartbreaker version)     3. Trouble In Mind     4. Down The Line     5. I'm Movin' On     6. As Long As     7. Heart Of Gold     8. The Running Kind (with Tom Petty)     9. Everybody's trying To Be My Baby (with Carl Perkins)     10. Brown-Eyed Handsome Man (with Carl Perkins)     11. T Is For Texas     12. Devil's Right Hand     13. I'm A Drifter (Version 2 Flea version)     14. Like A Soldier with Willie Nelson     15. Drive On (Alt Lyrics)     16. Bird On A Wire (Live with orchestra)    



Disc: 3
1. Singer Of Songs     2. The L & N Don't Stop Here Anymore     3. Redemption Song (with Joe Strummer)     4. Father & Son (with Fiona Apple)     5. Chattanooga Sugarbabe     6. He Stopped Loving Her Today     7. Hard Times     8. Wichita Lineman     9. Cindy (with Nick Cave)     10. Big Iron     11. Salty Dog     12. Gentle On My Mind     13. You Are My Sunshine     14. You'll Never Walk Alone     15. The Man Comes Around (Alt take)    

Disc: 4
1. Never Grow Old     2. I Shall Not Be Moved     3. I Am A Pilgrim     4. Doo Lord     5. When The Roll     6. If We Never Meet Again This Side Of Heaven     7. I'll Fly Away     8. Where The Soul Of Man Never Dies     9. Let The Lower Lights Be Burning     10. When He Reached Down     11. In The Sweet Bye And Bye     12. I'm Bound For The Promised Land     13. In The Garden     14. Softly & Tenderly     15. Just As I Am    

Disc: 5
1. Delia's Gone     2. Bird On A Wire     3. Thirteen     4. Rowboat     5. The One Rose     6. Rusty Cage     7. Southern Accents     8. Mercy Seat     9. Solitary Man     10. Wayfaring Stranger     11. One     12. Hung My Head     13. The Man Comes Around     14. We'll Meet Again     15. Hurt

The set also contains a 104-page cloth-bound book which includes a track-by-track discussion by Cash, producer Rick Rubin, and others, and features one of Cash's final interviews about his work.

Revised: September 03, 2007