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Johnny Cash Personal File (Columbia/Legacy)
Released May 2006
reviewed by Andree Farias
Sounds like
the warm baritone of the Man in Black at his most stripped-down, just him and his acoustic guitar.
At a glance
there's nothing intrinsically revelatory in Cash's Personal File other than the folk singer's deep love for country music, storytelling, and the gospel.
Track Listing |
Disc One:
1. The Letter Edged in Black
2. There's a Mother Always Waiting at Home
3. The Engineer's Dying Child
4. My Mother Was a Lady
5. The Winding Stream
6. Far Away Places
7. Galway Bay
8. When I Stop Dreaming
9. Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes
10. I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen
11. Missouri Waltz
12. Louisiana Man
13. Paradise
14. I Don't Believe You Wanted to Leave
15. Jim, I Wore a Tie Today
16. Saginaw, Michigan
17. When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)
18. Girl in Saskatoon
19. The Cremation of Sam McGee
20. Tiger Whitehead
21. It's All Over
22. A Fast Song
23. Virgie
24. I Wanted so
25. It Takes One to Know Me
Disc Two:
1. Seal It in My Heart and Mind
2. Wildwood in the Pines
3. Who at My Door Is Standing
4. Have Thine Own Way, Lord
5. Lights of Magdala
6. If Jesus Ever Loved a Woman
7. The Lily of the Valley
8. Have a Drink of Water
9. The Way Worn Traveler
10. Look unto the East
11. Matthew 24 (Is Knocking at the Door)
12. The House Is Falling Down
13. One of These Days I'm Gonna Sit Down and Talk to Paul
14. What on Earth (Will You Do for Heaven's Sake)
15. My Children Walk in Truth
16. No Earthly Good
17. Sanctified
18. Lord, Lord, Lord
19. What Is Man
20. Over the Next Hill (We'll Be Home)
21. A Half a Mile a Day
22. Farther Along
23. Life's Railway to Heaven
24. In the Sweet Bye and Bye |
The story of how Personal Filethe latest in a long line of posthumous releases celebrating the heritage of Johnny Cashcame into being sounds too good to be true, almost as if it were the stuff of legend. Shortly after the deaths of Cash and his wife June Carter Cash, their son, John Carter Cash, decided to shut down the historic House of Cash, the family's renowned studio/office/museum.
Providentially, the younger Cash invited executives from Legacy Recordings to visit the premises. During an unofficial tour of the facility they unearthed, among other things, a number of neat white boxes the Man in Black had marked "Personal File." In them, there was a goldmine of unreleased material, informal sessions Johnny Cash never thought were suitable for commercial release.
He was right. At its most superficial, Personal File is exactly that, an unfettered two-disc collection of tunes49 in alldear to his heart, recorded during the artist's personal and spiritual renaissance following the periods of turbulence he faced in the '50s and '60s. There's no rhyme or reason to the order in which the tracks were recorded, but the compilers made sure to present them in a sensible manner, with all the love and story songs occupying Disc One and all the inspirational numbers grouped on Disc Two.
"Through times of loneliness and heartbreak and despair and sadness I've always found that a good song of inspiration will lift me up and make me feel just a little bit better," says Cash at the intro of "Who at My Door Is Standing," but we know "a little better" is an understatement. Through the majority of the spiritual songs, Cash sounds downright jubilant, particularly in the self-penned "Sanctified," where the singer reveals his newfound state of mind with unbridled conviction. If you don't mind looking past the simplicity of these recordingsall of them consist of just Cash and his guitar, after allyou'll discover a man coming to terms with his humanity, but also with his own faith and walk with God.
Johnny Cash Personal File (Columbia/Legacy)
Released May 2006
reviewed by Andree Farias
© Andree Farias, subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.
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