In 1986,
Johnny Cash's place in country music's pecking order had fallen so low that
Columbia Records, his recording home since 1960, dropped him from their roster, claiming he was no longer marketable. Given this, perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment of
Cash's late-period association with
Rick Rubin and his
American Recordings label (beginning with the 1994 album
American Recordings) is that the world was reminded
Cash was a major artist whose work was still powerfully relevant. Among his fans and his peers, respect for
Cash had grown tremendously by the time he died in 2003, and since then, material from his archives has been steadily brought before the public. In 2016, a new wrinkle was introduced to
Cash's posthumous legacy when a collection of his poems and lyrics, previously unknown, was published in a book titled Forever Words: The Unknown Poems. Now 16 of the pieces from that book have been set to music by a variety of musicians on an album called
Johnny Cash: Forever Words. The artists adapting
Cash's words range from longtime friends and associates (
Kris Kristofferson and
Willie Nelson) and members of the Cash family (
Rosanne Cash and
Carlene Carter) to contemporary country and roots music stars (
Ruston Kelly &
Kacey Musgraves and
Brad Paisley) and some relative outliers who nevertheless respected
Cash's vision (
John Mellencamp and, in his final recording,
Chris Cornell). While
Cash's lyrical voice is strong in these recordings, each artist wrote and arranged their own music for the songs, and as a consequence this runs all over the stylistic map, from the purist's bluegrass of
Alison Krauss' "The Captain's Daughter" and the dark, moody country rock of
Cornell's "You Never Knew My Mind" to the eccentric orchestral sound of
Elvis Costello's "I'll Still Love You." From a musical standpoint,
Forever Words is as much about the musicians and what they see in
Cash's words as it is about the Man in Black's secret life as a poet, and while every track was created with skill and evident respect to the lyricist, the lack of musical cohesion works against this as an album rather than just a set of songs.
Johnny Cash: Forever Words has some brilliant moments and is an often-moving tribute to
Cash's gifts as a writer, but as a listening experience, it's unfortunately inconsistent. Maybe some of this was better left on paper. ~ Mark Deming