American III: Solitary Man

Performer: Johnny Cash
Artist: Tom Petty; Randy Scruggs; Sheryl Crow; Norman Blake; Merle Haggard; Marty Stewart; Will Oldham
Engineer: David Ferguson
Producer: Rick Rubin
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: Personnel: Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard (vocals, guitar); Sheryl Crow (vocals, accordion); Tom Petty (vocals, organ); Will Oldham, June Carter Cash (vocals); Norman Blake, Mike Campbell, Larry Perkins, Randy Scruggs, Marty Stuart (guitar); Laura Cash (fiddle); Benmont Tench (piano, harmonium, organ). Recorded at The Cash Cabin Studio, Hendersonville, Tennessee and The Akademie Mathematique Of Philosophical Sound Research, Los Angeles, California. Includes liner notes by Johnny Cash. "Solitary Man" won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. AMERICAN III was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Johnny Cash went through a lot in the late 1990s and the year 2000: a debilitating nerve disorder put the brakes on his live performances and touring, yet with AMERICAN III: SOLITARY MAN, his spirit and abilities remain undiminished. His voice has taken on a slightly more gentle and reflective quality, and his association with producer Rick Rubin has afforded him the opportunity to choose, and write, songs that are worthy of him. The Neil Diamond '60s pop hit "Solitary Man" is given an acoustic, spare reading, yet one can sense the demons of loneliness and frustration behind Cash's stoic delivery. Nick Cave's "The Mercy Seat" is an eerie, obsessive litany of the first-person musings and observations of an innocent man's time of execution. The Cash originals, like the proud yet wryly sarcastic "Country Trash" and devotional love song "Before My Time," let some light in. The overall sound of AMERICAN III: SOLITARY MAN is predominantly acoustic and intimate, with guitar, fiddle, piano, organ, and harmonium; guest stars Merle Haggard, Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty, and Norman Blake sound right at home with the Man In Black.

Entertainment Weekly (12/29/00, p.140) - Ranked #8 in EW's Top 10 Albums of 2000 - "...These songs have rarely sounded so authentic, thanks to arrangements that are spare but never colorless and a voice that;s deep in more ways than one." Q (1/01, p.91) - Included in Q's "50 Best Albums of 2000". Q (12/00, pp.118-9) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A regal comeback. It's a mostly acoustic affair...featuring unlikely covers....as resonant and dignified a covers album as you'll ever hear." CMJ (1/08/01, p.46) - Included in CMJ's "Year's Best Triple A Albums" from 2000. CMJ (10/16/00, p.26) - "...Pure goosebump material....[His] voice is commanding and cavernous in ever more tangible ways..." No Depression (1-2/01, pp.82-4) - "...It's a powerful disc....the key to its impact is in the reimagination [of songs] to make them [his]..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.64) - Ranked #17 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "Makes rock songs sound like something as old as the hills." Mojo (Publisher) (11/00, p.102) - "...The choice is igenious, their themes of survival, toughness, self-destructyion, sin, redemption and love adding up to an autobiography....his voice is sober, honest and defiant..." NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.78) - Ranked #32 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year". NME (Magazine) (10/21/00, p.43) - 9 out of 10 - "...What is remarkable about this is its punishing intensity....stripped down, vivid and pure, emotionally naked stuff from a 68-year-old man who just 12 months ago was very seriously ill..."

Johnny Cash was part rockabilly rebel, part campfire storyteller, part outlaw in black. Cash made country and rockabilly history on the Sun label in the 1950s. During the '60s, the ruggedly charismatic Cash rose to superstardom, ending the decade with both his marriage to June Carter and his own television show. In the '90s, Cash began his highly successful and acclaimed AMERICAN RECORDINGS series, reaching a new audience with an amazingly diverse set of songs, ranging from traditional tunes to alternative rock covers. With his lean, angular sound and hearty, passionate baritone, Cash forged one of the most unique styles in all of popular music, one that delved into gospel, folk, and rock, but also remained the essence of country music. Four months after his wife died, Johnny Cash passed away on September 12, 2003. And in 2005, the Oscar-nominated biopic WALK THE LINE brought Cash's music and legend to his largest audience yet.

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