The Man Comes Around

Many have tried, but it seems someone has finally succeeded in penning a biography of Johnny Cash. Robert Hilburn certainly has the credentials, and judging from the advance reviews the intimacy as well to approach a complex man and tell his story.

A few years back, James Mangold tried to capture the Man in Black on screen, but the result was a lurid portrait that went after his insecurities and not the charm that elevated him to the top of the country music world. Joaquin Phoenix certainly gave all his intensity to the role and there are some sterling moments. However, the film fell flat in my mind.

Of course, the idea of trying to capture a person who is larger than life is a major undertaking, especially so soon after he had passed away. Cash had reached completely across the musical spectrum, covering songs like Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode and Hurt by Nine Inch Nails in his final recordings. He never ceased to amaze, and made Personal Jesus into a personal anthem.

This was always the case with Johnny Cash. In his variety program, he introduced many great talents to his audience, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, as well as recorded an album with Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline. Here they are singing Girl From the North Country.

Look forward to reading the book due out later this month. The title of the post comes from one of his final songs.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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