Search - Johnny Cash :: Sings Ballads of True West

An Old West for the ages

Jerome Clark | Canby, Minnesota | 03/23/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ballads of the True West is a remarkably smart and accomplished recording. Hearing it for the first time in many years, I made the happy discovery that it is better than I'd remembered it. With vast ambition Johnny Cash sought to put down One Big Statement about the Old West, tying together in one coherent whole strands of history, legend, and popular culture. The result could have been pretentious piffle. It is everything but. If the record is not perfect, it's close enough.The failings are fairly minor. The two most consequential are (1) the occasional use of the annoying, kitschy harmony singing of the Statler Brothers (for whose need to exist in any context no persuasive evidence has ever been demonstrated) and (2) the late Shel Silverstein's dopey, mean joke of a song "25 Minutes to Go." There is also a serious factual error in the late Carl Perkins's "Ballad of Boot Hill," about the celebrated, endlessly chewed-over OK Corral gunfight. The song has Billy Clanton pleading for mercy before being gunned down by the merciless Earps and Doc Holliday. In fact, the outlaw who so pleaded was Billy's brother Ike, whom the Earp party let go unharmed (see the meticulous reconstruction of the incident in Allen Barra's excellent 1998 book Inventing Wyatt Earp). Billy, who indeed died, was well-armed and spoiling for a fight. Further, "Green Grow the Lilacs" was not, Cash's liner notes to the contrary, "written in 1848" by a Texas soldier in the Mexican War. It's a variant of the traditional Irish "Green Grows the Laurel," which was already of advanced age by 1848.These quibbles aside, Cash was in extraordinary artistic, even if not personal, form when, with Tex Ritter's able assistance, he conceived and executed BTW. The authentic cowboy folk songs are as powerfully rendered as one could ask. The venerable frontier waltz "I Ride an Old Paint" turns into a timeless anthem of the cowboy experience in Cash's resonant reading. "The Streets of Laredo" is equally magisterial, and "Sam Hall" is done with a perfect blend of humor and malice. There are some first-rate originals, in particular the hard-boiled outlaw ballad "Hardin Wouldn't Run." June Carter's spirited "The Road to Kaintuck" is a good song which would have been better if the Statlers had been locked out of the studio when it was being cut. Her mother Maybelle wrote "A Letter from Home" especially for the album, and it could easily have come from the early, classic Carter Family repertoire -- by which, of course, I mean high praise. Cash's fierce treatment of Merle Kilgore's "Johnny Reb" makes Johnny Horton's original seem almost comatose in comparison. There is also the two-part recitation "The Shifting, Whispering Sands," a stirring meditation on the desolate mystery of the Western landscape. "Stampede" is from the pen of doomed folk singer Peter LaFarge, better known for "The Ballad of Ira Hayes."More a folk than a country record, never quite accorded the critical respect it so richly deserves, it is surely among Cash's most memorable albums. I suspect it will touch and thrill listeners long after Cash and we are gone."

Songs of the Old West

D. Bakken | Minneapolis, MN | 09/13/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A nice collection of western songs, sung by the great baritone voice of Johnny Cash, that evoke a feeling of loneliness and heartbreak, but with a sense of hope left. My personal favorites are "Sam Hall", "Streets of Laredo", "25 Minutes to Go", and "Mister Garfield."Johnny Cash was an American classic who will be sorely missed.Highly Recommended!"

Incredible performance, brings the Old West to life!

Curtis Chambers | Clearwater, FL USA | 12/10/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These songs are great in and of themselves, representing the values and struggles of another, better time, the days of the Old West.



However, Johnny Cash's performance is just amazing. This is one of my favorite albums of all time and I cannnot recommend it highly enough to fans of the Old West and Johnny Cash.



I think, after listening to this album, that "Little Doggies" may be the best song ever written. Do yourself a favor, get this album.

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