You Must Be From Away

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Leif Hagen from Eagan Daily Photo has demanded that I out myself.

Musically, that is.

I recently expressed my dismay at the slim possibility that Barry Manilow might be performing in Mainz (he isn’t, thank God…) and Leif came back with

Well, John Denver is one reason why Dick Bakker and I could never be really close friends.

How can you trust someone who TRULY LIKES John Denver?

Ditto Nana Moussaka Mouskouri.

The bastard used to make mixtapes of the 2 of them and play them constantly in the car.

But Johnny Cash is something else.

My musical brain goes something like this:

Johnny Cash married June Carter of the Carter Family who were contemporaries of the Stanley Brothers who popularised “A Man of Constant Sorrow” which Rod Stewart recorded for his first solo album and Albert Lee (who is virtually unknown but has played with everyone worthwhile in the business and who I saw again last week) covers it as well.
Johnny Cash’s daughter is Rosanne Cash, to whom he gave The List – the 100 songs that he considered to be the most significant country and American songs that he knew. She trimmed them down to 18 and and got together with folks like Bruce Springsteen and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco to record them as …”The List”
Jeff Tweedy used to be in Uncle Tupelo which also spawned Son Volt with Jay Farrar who together with Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie recorded Kerouac’s lyrics from his time in Big Sur as “One Fast Move or I’m Gone”
June Carter’s daughter is Carlene Carter (who famously said at a concert at the Bottom Line in New York “If this song don’t put the c**t back in country, I don’t know what will” – shame that Mum and Dad unbeknown to her were in the audience…) who was married to Nick Lowe who was in all sorts of good bands like Brinsley Schwarz and Dave Edmund’s Rockpile and who played with Ry Cooder at the Auckland Town Hall last November and was in the studio with Dave Edmunds when Albert did a backing track for “Sweet Little Lisa”
Ry Cooder is about the only guitarist good enough to play with David Lindley who I’ve seen often (but not enough) and he also played on Little Feat‘s earlier albums AND on “Let in bleed” after which Mick and Keef (who was mates with Gram Parsons who was Emmylou Harris‘s bloke and Albert Lee played in her band for the longest time) put the hard word on him to join up as Brian’s replacement. Which he didn’t do, but Ron Wood did years later after Mick Taylor quit and of course Ron played on Rod’s first solo album and on so much more.
Carlene Carter was also romantically involved with Howie Eppstein from Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers who played on Johnnie Cash’s “Unchained” with the rest of the band and Tom Petty wrote “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” for Stevie Nicks who together with Lindsey Buckingham kick-started Fleetwod Mac and who once wrote “Has anyone ever written anything for you?” for Joe Walsh (who kick-started the Eagles) and sang “Are you strong enough” with Sheryl Crow who sang “My favourite mistake” with Clapton and defines grace as she walks onto the stage and slips on her guitar as if it was a piece of clothing.
And Andy Fairweather-Low from Amen Corner is playing rhythm guitar which is what he was doing when we first saw him (together with Albert) in Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings who played on a “Tribute to the King” together David Gilmour from Pink Floyd (and Albert) and I almost met David Gilmour on the market in Coustellet of course and the day before I almost met him, I bought “The Million Dollar Session” with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash.


Which closes the circle.


May it be unbroken, as the Carter Family would say.


Or sing.


But the song that always brings me back to Johnny Cash is “Hurt“