Life [Original recording remastered]

Johnny Cash | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 23, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0001FGBHU
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #307,783 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cash's introspective celebration of his career, May 25, 2005

By 

J. Ross "a-music_fan" (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life (Audio CD)

Playing Time - 49:40 -- Columbia Records has had many successes with Johnny Cash's concept albums over the years. Remember the history of America in train songs on Cash's "Ride This Train" (1960), and then there were albums like Bitter Tears-Ballads of the American Indian (1964), True West (1965), and From Sea to Shining Sea (1968). Jump ahead about four decades after a long and distinguished career in music, "Life" is now the fourth project in a series that also includes "Love," "God," and "Murder."

With the exception of "I Can't Go On That Way," these 18 tracks have been previously released. For the most part, the material comes from the 50s-70s, but a few tracks (The Night Hank Williams Came to Town, I'm Ragged But I'm Right, Where Did We Go Right, Wanted Man) were put out in 1983-2000. All the songs have been remastered for improved sound quality. Each song speaks to the things that were important to The Man in Black. He wore the black for the poor, the prisoners, the illiterate, sinners, the sick, the lonely, the old, and the reckless. His songs also reinforce the fact that life is transient. Every minute should be grasped. And time waits for nobody, even Johnny who always tried to tell stories or give us sage advice and wisdom in his songs. In the previously unreleased "I Can't Go On That Way," Johnny sings of booze, pills, women, and unhealthy food until "highs got low and the will said no, I can't go on that way."

Cash has had many top country hits, and his versatility allowed him to present blues, hymns, ballads, narratives, as well as songs about railroads, cowboys, and Indians. Cash personally chose well-known songs such as "Man in Black," Dylan's "Wanted Man" and "Ragged Old Flag" to be included on this compilation. Four days after giving his manager the final track list, Cash passed away in September, 2003 from complications of diabetes.

The project begins with memories of childhood, home and family ("Suppertime"). The humorous "Country Trash" is the story of a hardworking farmer with a few means and reminds us that "God's got a Heaven for country trash." Cash sings a tribute to Hank Williams, a huge inspiration to every country musician. What a great, happy, optimistic outlook on life is Tommy Duncan's western swingy "Time Changes Everything." Religion played a big part in Cash's life, and he sings "I Talk to Jesus Every Day." Songs of love, rambling, gambling, patriotism, people connected to the land, the Pima Indian Ira Hayes, and the working man. Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings sing "I Wish I Was Crazy Again," and "Where Did We Go Right?" is a song of enduring love that recorded with The Carter Family. The album closes with a song of salvation ("Lead Me Gently Home").

Johnny Cash led an amazing life during his 71 years. Always proud of his descent from a cotton farmer and his Cherokee Indian heritage, he lived life to the fullest. This release could be viewed as Cash's own introspective celebration of his career and personal existence. (Joe Ross, Roseburg, OR.)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Self-selected summation of a life's concerns..., August 6, 2004

By 

William E. Adams (Midland, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Life (Audio CD)

Johnny picked these 18 tracks covering more than 40 years of his career just before he died. Most fans will already have most of these on original albums remastered on CD. I bought this because it contains two of my favorites that I did not possess, "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" written by Peter LaFarge, which was part of his "Bitter Tears" LP, and "Man in Black." The other picks are pretty darn good as well, from "The Night Hank Williams Came to Town" and "Time Changes Everything" to "Where Did We Go Right" and "These Are My People." Few of these personal choices were hits on their own, but "Ira Hayes" was, and ought to be considered for reissue as a radio single since a big screen production of "Flags of Our Fathers" is in the works by Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood. In case you are too young to know what I'm talking about, the real Ira Hayes was one of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima toward the end of World War II, and the new movie will tell the tale of that group of Marines and Navy fighters. Another good song included here is "Wanted Man." If you like Johnny and do not already own all of these tracks, put this one on your "Wanted CD" list. You won't be sorry.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving eulogy to a brilliant life and career, May 29, 2004

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life (Audio CD)

In an ephemeral sense, this is the last album Johnny Cash made during his lifetime. The songs, drawn from across his career, were selected by Cash only days before he passed, making this essentially his last public musical statement. There will be post-death issues of material he recorded in his final months, but this song list is his final evaluation of his own catalog, and the over-arching summary of the "Love, God, Murder" box set issued in 2000.

Cash's song selections are striking in the strength of their description of every-day events as life's core. Dinner time is remembered as a cornerstone of family life, and hard work and contentedness with one's life is seen as one's highest calling. Conversely, truly historical events, like the appearance of Hank Williams in a nearby town, are rendered not as watershed epiphanies, but as part of life's fabric. Cash sings of faith, in God and Jesus ("I Talk to Jesus Every Day" "Lead Me Gently Home"), country ("Ragged Old Flag"), and, of course, the down-trodden ("Ballad of Ira Hayes" "Man in Black").

With Cash having reached his 70th birthday shortly before passing away in 2003, the market is literally glutted with reissues and compilations of his immense recorded catalog. This one is not as all-inclusive as the two- and three-disc "Essential" titles, but it paints a self-portrait of a life well-lived that a recitation of greatest hits could never picture. If you have all the tracks, program it yourself, if you don't, it's worth some duplication to hear Cash's self-penned eulogy.