Tuesday, May 11, 2010

June Carter Cash - Press On (1999, CD)

I'm pretty sure that at one point in my life, if anyone had asked, I would have said--and believed it at the time--that I would never buy a June Carter Cash album. Boy, was I wrong.

I'm five songs into this one and man, it's fantastic. This is real country music. Real pared-down, honest and unpretentious. Much of it so far sounds like it was recorded in one shot with only a few seconds break between songs for her to say a few words about the next song.

Totally recommended.

3 comments:

  1. "This is real country music."

    Yep. The Carter family were doing bluegrass before anyone had even come up with the terms "bluegrass" and "country" music.

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  2. I have loved this album for a few years now and I must say that June's "Ring of Fire" is superior to Johnny's-and that is saying a lot as his version is one of my earliest favorites. But the real text of the song never really hit me until I heard June's longing, her passion , her terror, as she described her descent into passion's tempting flames. Wow...

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  3. Yes, I am coming to have a stronger and stronger opinion that in order to really understand a song, you need to hear it performed by the person who wrote it.

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