Categories : Country + Western, Music Reviews.
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Rating: 4/5 Released: January 9, 2007 Reviewer: David Coats |
Live From Austin TX is the audio CD version of a project already released on DVD, Johnny Cash’s performance at Austin City Limits on January 3, 1987. Cash’s vocals remain effortless, and unlike many of his live records, the recording quality is first-rate, making his backing band (especially the brass) sound particularly vibrant.
The set list includes Cash classics (‘Ring Of Fire,’ ‘Folsom Prison Blues,’ ‘I Walk The Line’), and some lesser-known songs, including the spoken-word storytelling of ‘Let Him Roll’ and a rollicking rendition of ‘(Ghost) Riders In The Sky.’ However, the record is unbalanced, with all the classics coming in the first half and the dark horses in the second half. The concise performance is fascinating because it captures the Man In Black when he was something of a has-been, before being resurrected (again) with the American projects of the 1990s. As such, the sentiment behind the song ‘I’ll Go Somewhere And Sing My Songs Again’ is especially powerful.
The audience is enthusiastic and relatively young – Cash jokes before playing ‘I Walk the Line’ that he first did this song thirty-one years ago, “for those of you who were born since ‘56†– foreshadowing the audience Cash would find in the decade to come. Listen to Cash’s interactions with them, especially when he says, “I don’t even remember the bad times, there have been so many good times,†and you’ll know he never gave an insincere performance, regardless of his place in popular culture. While lacking the sheer magnitude of his more famous live offerings, with its artistry, intimacy, and sincerity, Live From Austin TX can stand with any of them.
