Mick Jagger: "The album is in progress but!"- Rolling Stone

Johnny Cash, the man in black is the biggest legend in the country.A whole volume is devoted to him in the set of the Ken Burns Country Music-Music series.Back on an extraordinary trajectory

31 janvier 2003 :Johnny Cash dévoile le clip du titre « Hurt ».

American Recordings enabled the man who dressed as black to remove his defuse of Has-Been Country and to be realized in extremis as a final hero.In the most beautiful tradition of the American comeback, he had come, he had defeated, had dropped then resurge from the missing.By saving his artist's skin,Johnny Cash, even dead, remained alive.Today, his songs, especially the first, those engraved with Sun Records, and the last, torn by Rick Rubin, belong to the Great American Folkbook, like those of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters,Chuck Berry or Bob Dylan.

The first notes of the song disperse in the studio.Alain Bashung takes the helmet placed on the table and puts it on his ears.Before closing his eyes, he crushes his cigarette inside a brass bobino, one of those that we used to use on the radio to wedge magnetic strips and that we still find, neglected ghosts,Taking dust in the studios.He listens to “Thirteen», his hands framing the headphones, his head high.When the song ends, he lifts his thumb.Questioned by the host, he first lights another cigarette.On the air, we hear the "ploc" of the lighter that opens and closes, then Bashung Lance, lapidary: "Cash.Johnny Cash.Just his name, you understood.It’s a bit ofJohn Wayne, except that he did not play comedy.He's cash.There you go, no hide and seek with cash.»

Soyons honnête, les premières fois que l’on aperçoitJohnny Cash, c’est à la télévision, en guest star, dans un épisode de Colombo, au “Muppet Show» ou dans la série sur la guerre de Sécession, Nord et Sud.It is at the turn 1970-1980, dark years for him, even ifJimmy Carter, a parent, is at the White House.His show broadcast on ABC, where he received Louis Armstrong, Dylan, Merle Haggard,Joni Mitchell, Bill Monroe, Neil Young, Roy Orbison, Marty Robbins, Ray Charles,J.J.Cale or Stevie Wonder, stopped.

He has become a notable music, crumbling under tributes, honorary citizen of Tennessee, godfather of Country.He gives a lot of money to charity;In 1987, on tour in Poland, he wrote a letter to Lech Walesa to support Solidarnosc!In short, it smells like the tree, retirement.Prestigious but old -fashioned, he is logically thrown by his record company due to the weakness of album sales not terrible.

Étendard de la country

Lucide, il s’autoparodie avec “Chicken in Black», dont l’ironie reste en travers du gosier des pontes de Columbia. “Allez, ouste, dehors !» Le chanteur country Dwight Yoakam, dont on adore le Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., monte au créneau : “C’estJohnny qui a payé le bureau dans lequel le trou du cul qui l’a viré passe ses journées !»

Vexed but indifferent, cash increases his shoulders and hit the road with his friends from Mount Rushmore from Outlaw Country, WaylonJennings, Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson, The Highwaymen.

At this precise moment, the radios have ceased to broadcast it, its tours have not passed through France from a concert given at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1976. On écoute plus volontiers la nouvelle vague, Yoakam donc, le jeune et beau Steve Earle,James McMurtry, voireJason & The Scorchers, LoneJustice, Violent Femmes ou CowboyJunkies. Le mélange des sons, des âges, des villes (Austin, Athens, Tucson) revitalise une country dont il a été l’étendard à sa voix défendante, lui, mouton noir à peine toléré puis éjecté du “Grand Ole Opry» un soir où, croyant entendreJésus, il flingue une rangée de projecteurs, quitte la scène et se perd dans la nuit.

Ainsi, physique alourdi, répertoire en berne, production sirupeuse, pochettes de disques improbables, position floue,Johnny Cash, à la fin des années 1980, est proche de la sortie de route.

Dust to dust

Never forget where our favorites come from.It is with a truck trip that it starts.The one who takes the cash family of the hills in the south of Arkansas at the Mississippi Delta, two hundred miles further north, in 1935.Roosevelt at the maneuver in Washington, Carrie Cash, as in a photo of Dorothea Lange, calms the tears of children while singing.And j.R.- He only becameJohn by engaging in the army - harmonizes with her. “Mon fils, tu as le don», souffle-t-elle.The storm rumbles, j.R., high as three apples, smiles, but it is terrorized.By the spouts of water?By maternal revelation?By the promise?

The Cash Cash, on arrival in Dyess, offers mud and non -drinking water. Quelques acres et une mule, des clous et de fragiles planches en guise d’abri, le même que celui du môme de Tupelo qui naît un peu plus à l’est de l’État ; c’est celle des “fermiers de la galère» de Steinbeck, celle, musique oblige, du Honkytonk Man d’Eastwood.Dust.Asking dust, returns to dust, dust to dust.

So, the voice of cash will be taken by dust as never will be that of silk of the same of Tupelo, however as poor as him, but quickly urban, fairly quickly in Memphis.Johnny, child of the river and the woods, likes to dream, fish, listen toJimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, The Carter Family, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Huckleberry Finn, on the radio.And learn the guitar with a neighbor with polio, django of the marshes, right hand atrophied, left hand, devilishly skillfully skillful.

They play, while the cash family picks up cotton.J.R. n’est pas là, d’ailleurs, lorsque son frère aîné,Jack, est déchiré de l’entrejambe jusqu’au torse par une scie à bois électrique.In agony, the brother describes the door of paradise, then closes his eyes.J.R. perd son préféré, sonJesse Garon.From then on, nothing is the same, does not care, you don't care about life.Leave, drift;Hobo as soon as ripe to try to forget, to think about it every day, every night.I Forgot to Remember to Forget.

Besides, jumping in time, we may seek, scrutinize the photographs, the bits of film, the reports, the one who never laughs, the buster of the band, is him.We are in 1955, he is often the oldest of the wilderness, the only one in any case to have already woman and child.Cash keeps his feelings for him, for later.He never says much, he listens, proud but modest, opens his magnificent ears which, during his three years in the US Air Force, allowed him to be the first American to learn that Stalin was dead.

Le creux de la vague

L’une des seules fois où il se départ de sa timidité, c’est pour lancer àJune Carter qu’un jour ils se marieront.In short, they are there, in black and white, young, beautiful, arrogant, setting fire to the teenage gorges, making the honest people strangle, sowing revolt in well-thinking America. Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, WandaJackson,Johnny Cash et ses musiciens, Marshall Grant et Luther Perkins, qui inventent le son de Cash, un roulis de train étouffé et implacable.Johnny est l’un de ceux auxquels Sam Phillips a donné sa chance dans l’écume laissée par le King. Pour Sun Records, il grave “Get Rhythm», “Big River», “Train of Love» ou “I Walk the Line», l’une de ses chansons fétiches.

Mâchoire fermée, silhouette de corbeau, guitare Martin portée sur le flanc,Johnny Cash aligne les galas, les kilomètres et les standards, saccageant toutes les chambres de motel qu’il trouve sur son chemin, seulement guidé dans sa nuit par la couleur des pilules qui éloignent fatigue et douleur.Red light, orange fire, green light.Cluttered by his sorrow, his poverty, his shyness and his voice, he rushes, falls, gets up, gives a concert, then another, another and another.Finally, he dies.Believes to die. Est sauvé parJune Carter.And there, Bingo Bigot!The one to whom Elvis wrote tender letters finally grants her her hand. La famille Carter entre dans sa vie, il s’en accommodera, accordant quelques gages, inventant quelques miracles, donnant des sous ou tournant un film sur la vie deJésus avec Billy Graham, leur Khan, leur gourou.Because, in the south (see.Jerry Lee Lewis etJimmy Swaggart), Saintes Écritures et musique du diable sont jumelles.

Cash self-lodging (beautiful French translation of Emmanuel Dazin) tells in detail this amazing infernal fight. D’intox (“J’ai vu la lumière») à cures de désintox, apparemment rangé des voitures, the devil inside, il fonde une autre famille, apprend à sourire et fait le boulot. Tous les jours sur la route avec le “Johnny Cash Show», il multiplie les albums concepts : les cow-boys, les Indiens, les trains, les prisons, la guerre civile.He meets Bob Dylan, a fan, and their friendship seals the link that was missing between Elvis and Bob.Trinity in place in the heavens, American rock is erased, the English again tumble, flooding the delta with their pop, their fringes and their decibels.Johnny, quarantaine, puis cinquantaine approchant, déprime.Too many good feelings, not enough good discs.The rope is tied around his neck, stuck with love and resentment.

Clown noir

Une année, à paris, 1994, en quelques jours séparés par une brusque chaleur, on écoute Nick Cave le 14 juin à l’Olympia etJohnny Cash le 29 à l’Élysée-Montmartre.At the time, they have not yet met, but the fluids were sweating.Men in black obviously, both, without knowing which is the most modern, the bloodiest, the least played.At the Élysée, Cash, surrounded by his family, offers an almost agreed recital, sober, classic. Puis, revenant seul, il joue quelques extraits de son nouveau disque : “Delia’s Gone», “The Beast in Me» ou le fameux “Thirteen» de Glenn Danzig.He smiles, sudden black clown, happy like a Bohemian, free without the violins and the Pedal Steel.The ovation which follows each extract from the American Rick Rubin Recordings, fresh for a few weeks, not yet praised by the criticism or the establishment of Nashville - as prompt to the reversal of jacket as to embalming -, iswaiting. So long,Johnny, good to see you…

En cette fin de siècle, Cash devient le Rembrandt de la country, peignant de crus autoportraits plus noirs que la cendre, au clair-obscur de sa vie, aidé d’un docteur Gachet du rap, le producteur de LL CoolJ, de Slayer ou des Red Hot Chili Peppers.Rick Rubin is his Alan Lomax, the ultimate gedder of his fears, spectra hunter, revealing shadows.For almost ten years, they ride together, revisiting the repertoire, sketching American memories.And man, leaning over his past, finds his musical dignity.

Mal perçue à ses débuts par l’entourage de Cash, la rencontre entre un Gargantua trash – cheveux longs, pieds nus, barbe fleurie – et, dixit Rubin, “un grand artiste, mais qui ne faisait plus de grands disques» est une improbable alchimie, une recette que d’autres essaient de reproduire avec plus ou moins de bonheur, le vieux et le jeune, WandaJackson ou Loretta Lynn etJack White, Dr.John et Dan Auerbach, etc. Avec Rick Rubin, Cash retrouve la vérité du studio Sun, à Memphis, lorsque Sam Phillips lui disait : “Bien,Johnny, bien.One more. Tu en as bien encore une ?» jusqu’à ce que “Hey Porter» passe la gorge du communiant.

So, the loop closing, Delta on the Delta, the finished job, hundreds of songs collected by Rubin, more than to disappear.The night will be long to come. Pneumonie, coma, paralysie, mort deJune Carter, le chêne s’écorche, mais écorce après écorce. Et, lorsqu’il faudra enfin s’évanouir, comme Red Stovall, le musicien honkytonk d’Eastwood,Johnny mourra la guitare à la main, en jetant ses dernières forces dans la bataille.Besicles on the nose, the dark surrounding him, guitar and belt in the belts.This voice from the end of the road, this voice, a cart ready to pay the precipice.

A last song before melting black. Ce sera “Hurt» de Nine Inch Nails : “I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel.» Le clip, tourné par Mark Romanek, confronte leJohnny crépusculaire à un Cash solaire, jeune, affamé, beauté dangereuse. On y voitJune, des trains, des taulards et la maison de l’enfance. Puis, dans la résonance de l’accord du piano,Johnny referme le couvercle comme celui du cercueil, non sans avoir murmuré un dernier couplet : “If I could start again / A million miles away / I would keep myself / I would find a way.»

Pour en apprendre davantage sur cette série documentaire événement, c’est dans le dernier numéro de Rolling Stone que ça se passe ! Et il est disponible juste ICI !

Arte unveils a box bringing together all the episodes of this event series.It is available in physical and digital support here.

Episode 1: The beginnings Espisode 2: Hard Times (1933-1945) Episode 3: The Shakespeare Hillbilly (1946-1952) Episode 4: I Can't Stop Loving You (1953-1963) Episode 5: The children of America (1964-1968) Episode 6: Will the Circle Be Unbroken? (1968-1972) Episode 7: Are you sure Hank done it this way?(1973-1983) Episode 8: Music Vaincra (1973-1983) Episode 9: Don’t Get Above Your Raisin ’(1984-1996)

Trailer :

Belkacem Bahlouli