Look Again to the Wind Lafarge

A Special Release Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Greenbacks's Landmark Album

Look Again To The Current of air: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited

Of all the dozens of albums released byJohnny Cash during his nearly half-century career, 1964'southwardBiting Tears: Ballads of the American Indian was among the closest to the artist'south heart. A concept anthology focusing on the mistreatment and marginalization of the Native American people throughout the history ofthe U.s., its eight songs—amidst them "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," a #iii hit single for Cash on theBillboard state chart—spoke in frank and poetic language of the hardships and intolerance they endured.

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Now, 50 years later on it was recorded, a collective of top Americana artists has come together to reimagine and update these songs that meant so much to Cash, who died in 2003.Expect Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash'southward Biting Tears Revisited (Sony Music Masterworks,Baronial 19), produced byJoe Henry (Bonnie Raitt,Aaron Neville), features American music giantsKris Kristofferson,Emmylou Harris,Steve Earle,Bill Miller,Gillian Welch andDavid Rawlings, andNorman and Nancy Blake, too as up-and-comers the Milk Carton Kids andRhiannon Giddens, interpreting the music ofBitter Tears for a new generation. Every bit his project was for Greenbacks, the new collection is a labor of honey with a strong sense of purpose fueling its cosmos.

"Prior toBitter Tears, the conversation virtually Native American rights had not really been had," says Henry, "and at a very significant moment in his trajectory,Johnny Greenbacks was willing to draw a line and insist that this exist considered a man rights event, alongside the civil rights issue that was coming to fruition in 1964. But he also felt that the record had never been heard, then there'due south a real sense that we're being asked to acquit it forward."

Bitter Tears, widely acknowledged for decades as ane of Cash's greatest artistic achievements, did not realize its stature as a landmark recording easily and quickly. At the time that Cash proposed the album, he was met with a not bad deal of resistance from his tape label.  They felt that a song cycle revolving effectually the Native American struggle every bit perpetrated past the white man took him likewise far afield of the country mainstream and Greenbacks's core audience. Greenbacks notwithstanding released the album and although it did non perform as well as he had hoped, he remained extremely proud of the album throughout his life.

Ironically, at the same time that his own label was balking because it felt he would amerce the country audience with his Native American tales, Cash was finding a new set of admirers among the burgeoning folk music crowd that had recently made stars of Bob Dylan,Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. Greenbacks's debut operation of "Ira Hayes" at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival had earned him rave reviews.  His appeal was undeniably expanding beyond the state audience, and for those who did connect withBitter Tears, amidst them a 17-year-old aspiring vocaliser-songwriter namedEmmylou Harris, its music was revelatory and of import. "The record was a seminal work for her equally a teenager," says Henry. "She bought the album brand new and realized at that moment thatJohnny Greenbacks was a folk singer, not a country vocaliser, and was involving himself politically and socially in a way that she had identified with the great folk singers at that moment."

Henry'south awareness of Harris' affection forBitter Tears led him to invite her to contribute toLook Again To The Wind:Johnny Greenbacks'sBitter Tears Revisited. Following the epic, ix-minute album-opener "Every bit Long as the Grass Shall Grow," written by Peter La Farge—a folk vocalizer-songwriter with Native American bloodlines who Cash had befriended—and sung here by Welch and Rawlings, Harris takes the lead song on the Greenbacks-penned "Apache Tears," which likewise features sweet, close harmonies by the Milk Carton Kids, the duo comprisingKenneth Pattengale andJoey Ryan. For Henry, carefully matching artist to song was integral to the integrity ofLook Again To The Current of air. For some of the tracks, that procedure required a great deal of consideration. But when it came to deciding who would interpret "The Ballad ofIra Hayes," Henry quickly zeroed in on Kristofferson.

Some other of five songs on the original anthology written by La Farge, "The Carol ofIra Hayes" is based on the true story ofIra Hamilton Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines seen raising the flag at Iwo Jima in an iconic World War II photograph. Hayes' moment of glory was followed upon his return to civilian life with prejudice and alcoholism—Greenbacks, moved by Hayes' story and La Farge's recounting of it, vowed to record the vocal.  When planning outLook Again To The Current of air, Henry knew that only a few living singers could evangelize the song the mode he wanted to hear it. He called Kristofferson, utilizing Rawlings and Welch to sing background.

"I wanted somebody whose relationship withJohnny Cash was not only musical simply personal," he says. "I'd worked with Kris on a couple of other things and I thought why not inquire? Who else has a voice with that kind of power and dominance?" That same sense of intuition guided Henry to choose the other participants and the material they would render. For La Farge'due south "Custer," the album'southward tertiary song, the producer knew instinctively thatSteve Earle was the right man for the task. "Steve is an upstart, and there are very few people I can imagine working correct at present who could deliver a song that is that pointed in that item way and do information technology authentically without cowering from it or making it feel a little too arch," Henry says. "He actually could embody the kind of swagger that that song insists upon."

Similarly, Henry choseNancy Blake (with Harris and Welch on bankroll vocals) for the Greenbacks-written "The Talking Leaves,"Norman Blake to sing "Drums," the Milk Carton Kids to lead "White Daughter" (both of those authored by La Farge) and the powerhouse vocalistRhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for the original album's finale, "The Vanishing Race," written by Cash'southward expert friendJohnny Horton. To bolster the anthology (the original, typical of mid-'60s vinyl LPs, ran merely over a one-half hr), Henry fills out the rail list ofLook Again To The Current of air with reprises of "Apache Tears" and "As Long Equally the Grass Shall Grow"—both sung past Welch and Rawlings—and ends the set with the championship track, a La Farge tune that did not appear on the originalJohnny Cash album but instead on the songwriter'due south ain 1963 releaseEqually Long every bit the Grass Shall Grow: Peter La Farge Sings Of The Indians. Here information technology'south sung byBill Miller, withSam Bush providing mandolin andDennis Hunker upright bass, a fine and plumbing fixtures coda to the collection.

From the start, Henry looked at the project as ane that would require great personal commitment and responsibleness on his ain part. Approached equally potential producer of the projection by the man who starting time envisioned it, Sony Music Masterworks' Senior Vice PresidentChuck Mitchell (who'd been in conversations with Antonino D'Ambrosio, author ofA Heartbeat and a Guitar, a book well-nigh the making ofBitter Tears), Henry immediately understood the importance of the assignment. "Johnny Cash was my first musical hero and I experience a profound debt to him equally an artist, and as a courageous one," he says. "How could I say no to that?"

He besides realized that theBitter Tears album held a special identify in Cash's canon, and that in many ways the bug it raised nevertheless resonate today—this had to be credible in the new versions. "Mr. Greenbacks knew that if he took this on, fifty-fifty if his betoken of view was not adopted, he had the power to exist heard," Henry says.

The album was recorded in three sessions: the first two inLos Angeles andNashville and, lastly, one at the Cash Cabin, in Greenbacks'south hometown ofHendersonville, Tennessee, whereBill Miller cut his contribution. Providing the instrumental backing for most of the album areGreg Leisz (steel guitar, guitars), Keefus Ciancia (keyboards),Patrick Warren (keyboards for the 50.A. sessions),Jay Bellerose (drums) andDave Piltch (bass).

TRACKLIST:

1. Equally Long as the Grass Shall Grow – feat.Gillian Welch &David Rawlings

2. Apache Tears – feat.Emmylou Harris due west/The Milk Carton Kids

3. Custer – feat.Steve Earle w/The Milk Carton Kids

4. The Talking Leaves – feat.Nancy Blake w/Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings

5. The Ballad ofIra Hayes – feat.Kris Kristofferson w/Gillian Welch &David Rawlings

6. Drums – feat.Norman Blake w/Nancy Blake,Emmylou Harris,Gillian Welch &David Rawlings

7. Apache Tears (Reprise) – feat.Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings

8. White Girl – feat. The Milk Carton Kids

9. The Vanishing Race – feat.Rhiannon Giddens

10. Every bit Long equally the Grass Shall Abound (Reprise) – feat.Nancy Blake,Gillian Welch &Dave Rawlings

11. Look Over again to The Wind – feat. Neb Miller

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Source: http://billmiller.co/look-again-to-the-wind/