Stationary Bandit

New Johnny Cash CD

Johnny Cash's posthumous album, "American V: A Hundred Highways" entered the Billboard Charts at #1.  The album is very good, maybe the best of the American Recordings. The success of Cash's recent albums has not received much airtime on country radio.  Rick Rubin, the producer of the album, suggests one way to remind the public of this neglect.

A more immediate possibility is another Billboard magazine advertisement ripping the country music world for its apathy toward Cash. After the overlooked 1996 album "Unchained" (U.S. sales to date: 152,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan) won the Grammy for best country album, Rubin controversially reproduced a famous photo of Cash hoisting a middle finger into the eye of the camera, and sarcastically thanked "the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support."

"So much of the idea of that ad was really for Johnny's entertainment," Rubin recalled. "It's a great idea, having the No. 1 album and the No. 1 country album, it's a great time for a f--- you from Johnny Cash!"

Here us the story.  Only time will tell if Rubin follows through.

Best (Partial) Sentence I read Today

Tyler Cowen has made "the best sentence I read today" theme a regular feature at Marginal Revolution.  Here

... For the Grand Ole Opry for having a Hank Williams impersonator greet you at the door but barring Hank Williams and Jimmy Martin from being members!

From the insert in the latest Hank Williams III cd, "Straight to Hell."

Ali Farka Toure Has Passed Away

Ali Farka Toure, a guitarist and singer from Mali whose music had strong parallels with American blues, died of bone cancer March 7 at his home in the Malian capital of Bamako. He was believed to be 66 or 67.

Mr. Toure, who considered himself primarily a farmer, won two Grammy Awards for his haunting and spirited recordings of the music of his West African homeland. Wearing brightly printed robes and sandals, he took his country's culture to Europe, Japan and the United States in tours during the past 20 years. He mixed native and western instruments and left audiences across the world marveling at the subtle power of his music.

Story here.  If you have never listened to his music, a good place to begin is his recent Grammy winning album, "In the Heart of the Moon."

Music for HIV/AIDS Medicine

U2's Bono and US singer Alicia Keys have teamed up to record a song for a charity providing medicine to children affected by HIV and Aids in Africa.

The pair have covered Peter Gabriel's hit Don't Give Up to raise money for Keep a Child Alive.

The song will be released as a download through iTunes on Tuesday.

This approach to one aspect of economic development seems more reasonable than the goals of Live8.  Story here.

Neal Diamond Meets Rick Rubin

Def American founder, legendary producer Rick Rubin, has turned his talents to reinventing Neil Diamond.  Rubin, who has produced Red Hot Chili Peppers and AC/DC, has produced '12 Songs', the new album for Neil Diamond.

Rubin was responsible for putting Johnny Cash in the studio for his final four albums and teaming him with musicians such as Flea from the Chili Peppers and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and introducing the country legend to songwriters like Nick Cave and Trent Reznor. The results are considered some of Cash's best ever work.

Diamond's album features all original songs. "Most of the songs were recorded with Neil playing and singing at the same time," Rick Rubin told Rolling Stone, "and it's a different animal. It's taking him back to being more of a singer-songwriter. He really blows me away."

The rest of the story is here.  Here is a review .  After listening to the album, I think that Rick Rubin, like he did with Johnny Cash, has began the Neal Diamond revival.

Miriam Makeba's Farewell Tour

Legendary South African singer Miriam Makeba is to end her performing days with a world tour, after a career spanning more than 50 years. The 73-year-old singer will begin her tour in Johannesburg on Monday.  "I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can," she said.  Makeba - known as Mama Africa - spent 31 years in exile for her commitment to human rights and condemnation of apartheid in her home country.

Story here.  Her webpage is here.  Starting with this cd is not a bad place to begin.

Greatest Album of the Past 20 Years

CNN reports Spin magazine's list. 

Spin magazine named Radiohead's "OK Computer" the top album of the past 20 years, praising a futuristic sound that manages to feel alive "even when its words are spoken by a robot."

The British band's album edged out Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and Nirvana's "Nevermind" on a list in Spin's 20th anniversary issue, currently on newsstands.

I doubt in five years (or even one) Radiohead will top the list.

Willie Nelson Goes Reggae

I kid you not.  Apparently, the red-headed stranger's love for marijuana extends beyond recreational use.

Nearly a decade after hatching the idea for a country album that infuses reggae, Willie Nelson's "Countryman" will finally get released on Aug. 2.

The album finds the outlaw country icon covering Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" and dueting with Toots Hibbert on the Johnny Cash/June Carter Cash composition "I'm a Worried Man."

The project was originally conceived with Island Records founder Chris Blackwell when Nelson joined the label's roster in 1995. Basic tracks were recorded with producer Don Was over the next few years, but Blackwell's exit from the label and a series of sales and mergers involving its parent companies put the album in limbo.

Here is the entire story.

Is American Music Violence New?

David Hajdu writes

In its bloodlust, hip-hop is more old school than many of its fans and critics may realize; in fact, the music is carrying on a tradition as old as the blues. Created by and for indigent African-American sharecroppers in the South a century ago, the blues gave voice to the discontent and anxiety of a subjugated, marginalized people. It was an outlet for rage - as well for joy, sometimes, to palliate that fury - coded in language about domestic matters, to throw off any eavesdropping whites.

He continues

Wrath and weaponry of various kinds infused virtually every style of blues in the music's formative years. Bessie Smith, the fearsome sexual provocateur, bellowed (in "Black Mountain Blues"), "I'm bound for Black Mountain, me and my razor and my gun/Gonna shoot him if he stands still and cut him if he run." Lonnie Johnson, the virtuoso of delicate, chamber-style guitar blues, crooned (in "Got the Blues for Murder Only"), "I'm going to old Mexico, where there's long, long reaching guns/When they want real excitement, they kill each other one by one." Leadbelly, the pardoned convict who composed lyrical and earthy folk-blues, entertained nightclub audiences with his tribute to a bartender who shot a policeman, "Duncan and Brady": "Brady, Brady carried a .45, said it would shoot half a mile/Duncan had a .44, that what laid Mr. Brady so low."

I have often thought that modern music is no more violent that previous generations.   Johnny Cash sang about shooting a man "just to watch him die."  Other songs come to mind as well.  The interesting aspect of violence in hip-hop is that the incentives for sucesss include gun fights with minimal bloodshed.  One's credibility depends on having and using guns but not using to seriously harm others. As Hajdu concludes: "Violence is not the art form; it is just part of the deal."

The End of KoRn?

Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch has left band.  A recent religious awakening led to his decision.  Let's hope he finds the happiness he is looking for.  Here is the story.