Disco de Johnny Cash: “My Mother's Hymn Book”

The satirical newspaper, The Onion, once featured the headline: Affluent White Man Enjoys, Causes the Blues. The article reports a self-described "blues nut" who is a senior vice-president of a Chicago-area industry that employs-and grossly underpays-African Americans. At least a part of the humor here pokes fun at the Caucasian blues aficionado who "loves the music" but, of course, has never really participated in the culture from which it has emerged. Your typical Taj Mahal concert these days will be attended by throngs of adoring, Abercrombie&Fitch-wearing, baby-boomer yuppies. Then there is the Wall Street trader who is devoted to the music of, say, Doc Watson or Flatt and Scruggs. Though he would hardly wish to spend time in that flyover territory between New York and L.A. and rub elbows with the unwashed for whom such music is a way of life, he enjoys a good PBS bluegrass special featuring Allison Krauss. There is, of course, nothing particularly wrong with this. Great music tends to transcend the culture that spawns it and command a wider audience. It is possible to enjoy folk music without being one of the folk.

There is a similar way of appreciating Johnny Cash's My Mother's Hymn Book. One Sunday a few years ago in a small cabin on his property, Cash sat down alone with his guitar, literally thumbed through his mother's dog-eared old hymn book, and recorded the old country gospel songs that his mother once sang to him-songs that he knew by heart. It would be hard to imagine a simpler production. There is Cash's familiar but lived-in voice accompanied by his signature alternating bass line guitar picking. Though several of the songs indicate that they were "arranged by John R. Cash," they are pure and unadorned, like the faith that they express. There is appeal here for people who have never darkened the door of a church-much less a little clapboard-sided church in rural Arkansas. After all, this is Cash and, as they say, if you don't dig Cash you've got no soul. And then, too, there is the cultural appeal of an endangered bit of Americana. Daniel Dennett, "dangerous Darwinian" that he is, once suggested that Fundamentalist culture is worthy of preservation as a kind of museum piece and that perhaps it would be a good thing to keep a few Baptists around in "cultural zoos" of sorts. If this music is appropriately bracketed and thus demythologized, it may well be circulated even among the unbelieving hip. Were he still with us, it would not be difficult to imagine Cash performing some of this music before an appreciative crowd at this year's Bonnaroo.

But listening to the recording and reading the accompanying byline, it is obvious that Cash himself is not keeping the music at arm's length. This is an intensely personal creation: a work of love. This was his "favorite album," the one of which he was the most proud. "That was me," he says. Cash is "singing and playing this music back to his mother," recalling a childhood that, though unhappy in many ways, was steeped in the message and music of the Gospel. Some of the hymns have acquired an additional significance for him, too. "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder" and "In the Sweet By and By" were sung at the funeral of his brother Jack ("my best friend"), who was killed in a horrible sawmill accident when Cash was 12. The family sang, "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning" as they gathered around Cash's coma-stricken father on his deathbed. As Cash describes the scene, "though he had been sound asleep in a coma for days, his lips started moving and he started singing that song along with us."

But I suspect that Cash himself would tell you that the deepest significance of this music is its message-a message that sustained him in troubled times. He speaks of his "wilderness years" when "the demons crawled up my back." Seriously addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates, and even attempting suicide, but for the grace of God his might have been yet another tragic tale of one who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for stardom. These "powerful songs," he says, were "my magic to take me through the dark places." A self-described "C-minus Christian," Cash says, "even through the dark times, I always felt like I was bound for the Promised Land, especially singing those songs." One gets the impression that, even as he cultivated his image as "one of the original outlaws," as Willie Nelson once described him, he never quite forgot the One of whom his mother had sung. He may have wandered far from home, but he took the hymnal-the hymns, at least-along with him. Here is a white-haired old sinner who has, I wish to believe, finally reconciled himself to God. Cash says that he finally came to accept "that God thought there was something worth saving."

I, too, was steeped in this music growing up and, after many years of its absence, it resurfaces into my life through Cash's voice in a powerful way. This is partly due, I suppose, to the realization that a great deal of time has passed while I wasn't looking. Not only does listening occasion childhood memories that seem impossibly distant in my past, but there is the further reflection that the singer-someone who seemed a permanent fixture in the culture in which I was raised-had nearly reached the end of his life as he recorded these hymns, and has now passed on. And so have most of the people in my own past with whom I associate this music. And so shall I. As a friend has observed, it is particularly moving to hear Cash's aged and weary voice singing of "a place where we'll never grow old."

Then, too, there is the reflection that Cash had some good reason for recording these hymns literally out of his mother's old hymnal when he did and as he did. Perhaps this is my own interpolation, but it is easy to hear these recordings as outward evidence of a final act of repentance after a life lived as an outlaw on the lam. Hearing Cash sing the words, "Ye who are weary, come home," it is equally easy to think that he has finally accepted that very offer. And, in light of such thoughts, I realize that it is only as a participant in the culture of belief that this music can be fully appreciated. Hearing an aged and experienced Cash singing that his only plea is Christ's blood and Christ's invitation, I realize that I stand in need of such grace just as surely as does this outlaw and former drug addict. And I recognize that I, too, wrestle with demons. Such reflections complete the circuit between the performer and his audience in a way that is just not available to those who would "bracket" the message of the music and hear it as a cultural artifact.

When you grow up in a church, you grow up knowing a certain set of songs. They indelibly define your faith. The songs on this album come literally from his mother's hymn book, so the collection is unique in that these are the songs Cash knew before we knew him. We know Cash as the Man in Black, a man who defined his part in this world's suffering. This album reveals another side of Cash, one not of his own making, but of the Lord's -- this is the man we ought to understand: the man of faith.

"My Mother's Hymn Book" is volume four of the Unearthed box set, so for those who own Unearthed, it is a collector's item. As an album in its own right, it is quite unadorned. Simply Cash, his guitar and the hymn book. Released around Easter and in the wake of the Passion of the Christ, the album might benefit commercially, but it is anything but commercial. As a collection of songs, it reminds one of Cash's earlier gospel output -- yeah, he wants to sell albums, but this is his tithe (offering).

This listener is grateful to receive it.

Not a week goes by when I don't listen to this CD at least once...it is absolutely essential. For a pure, unvarnished, unsentimental, reverent, and heartfelt rendering of classic American hymns, Johnny Cash's MY MOTHER'S HYMNBOOK cannot be beaten.

Personally, I believe a copy of this CD should be placed in the Smithsonian Institution and other world-class museums as a fine and landmark example of true American folk-Gospel music. There are so many compelling elements at work here: as he recorded these songs, Cash was acutely aware of his own mortality; he was singing precious songs passed on to him by his beloved mother from his earliest days; and he was singing songs he deeply believed to the God he loved.

All of the cuts are great, but I particularly find "I Am a Pilgrim" deeply moving and real. "Let the Lower Lights Be Burning" is a rich piece of songwriting and Johnny really brings it home. In the hands of another, "In the Garden" could be a little syrupy or sentimental--but with Johnny, it's a beautiful song of worship and devotion. "Just As I Am" is about as close to an autobiographical statement as you could get for Johnny Cash.

If you're looking for fancy production numbers, rich harmonies, tuneful warbling, and loaded instrumentation, don't look here. This is CD is like an astringent that cleanses and purifies the soul with its sharp simplicity. Seldom has a work of such barebones austerity made such a large and landmark impact.

Whether you want to buy this album as a single CD, or as part of the titanic UNEARTHED box set...whether you are a believer or a seeker...whether you're a pilgrim or a stranger...you need to get it, and get it soon.

Thank God for Johnny Cash! What a great man, and a truly gifted musician who had a profound influence on artists of varying musical genres. I only have two of his cds, but I truly love and admire this disc here. I must say there is more to this cd than just his gravelly, baritone voice and simple guitar strummings. I grew up in a religious family attending church each Sunday, and many of these songs I'm familiar with from our own hymn book. My favorites are If We Never Meet Again This Side Of Heaven, Where The Sould Of Man Never Dies, and I'm Bound For The Promised Land. It is such a great cd, and very simple yet profound. There is something so beautiful in the man sitting down with just his guitar singing songs his Mother brought him up with. The songs hold such great meaning and significance, and are raw, emotional and deep. You hear the man singing the songs, and know he means what it is he's saying. I'd recommend this to anyone, and believe that anyone can grasp the special nature of this recording.

"My Mother's Hymn Book" is an intimate collection of hymns performed by the late, great and legendary Man In Black, Johnny Cash.

Recorded during Cash's final recording sessions with producer Rick Rubin, Cash performs 15 of his personal favorite hymns taken directly from his mother's hymn book entirely solo with just him singing and playing guitar.

Johnny's Christian roots come across in huge proportions through the entire disc. Although he was in poor health during the recording of this album, his voice and musical delivery are as powerful as ever. The sparseness of this recording makes the music ever more up-close and personal.

This an album of real and genuine Christian music performed by a true musical patriot. This is definitely a must-have for anyone.