WE WALK THE LINE: JOHNNY CASH TRIBUTE

This week, Sony Legacy released We Walk The Line: A Celebration Of The Music Of Johnny Cash. It's a live album of a concert recorded earlier this year in Austin, Texas.  An impressive group of singers joined an amazing house band to pay tribute to the songs that Johnny sang.  He didn't always write the songs he sang, but when the man took a tune on, it belonged to him.

My favorite performance on the album is Lucinda Williams doing Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails classic "Hurt," which Johnny covered on American IV: The Man Comes Around. But there are a lot of great performances here.  Jamey Johnson is kind of the perfect guy to sing Johnny songs: he does "Sunday Morning Coming Down" with Kris Kristofferson, which is great.   Buddy Miller's "Hey Porter" is great, as is the Carolina Chocolate Drops' "Jackson," Shooter Jennings' "Cocaine Blues" and Willie Nelson's "I Still Miss Someone."

The most moving part of the night might have been the cover of The Highwaymen's "Highwayman."  The Highwaymen were, of course, Cash, Willie, Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings.  So, this version featured Willie and Kristofferson, along with Jamey Johnson singing Johnny's part, and Shooter singing his dad's part.  I got chills listening.  Also, the arrangement is way cooler than the original from the album.

I have to give it up to the house band: Buddy Miller on guitar, Blue Note Records president Don Was on bass, Greg Leisz on slide guitar, Kenny Aronoff on drums and Ian McLagan on keyboards.  Mr. McLagan actually told me all about the show in a recent interview. He told me there'd probably be some kind of tour supporting it, with the house band and different singers in each city.  I hope that that's still on.  Hell, I don't care if they get any famous singers: just put Buddy Miller on the mic, that's good enough for me!

THE NIGHTWATCHMAN AT CITY WINERY: A (GLORIOUSLY) IRONY-FREE ZONE

I'd seen the great Tom Morello in concert a number of times - with Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Street Sweeper Social Club.  But this was my first real Nightwatchman show (other than a brief appearance at Pete Seeger's 90th birthday concert).  At that show, Tom and Bruce Springsteen did an acoustic duet of "The Ghost Of Tom Joad," a song that Rage surprised people with when they covered it in the '90s.  These days, it makes a lot more sense. Tom's dedication to sticking up for the less fortunate, and his outrage at the evils of society is similar to Bruce's (he's even more "left" than Bruce, I think).  But performing as The Nightwatchman, Tom makes a compelling case as a guy with two different and legit musical personas.  One - the guitar shredder from Rage and Street Sweeper, and, two, The Nightwatchman either solo or backed by a band. The Nightwatchman is something he can always do, whether or not he is with a band. Or whether or not he has electricity.

There's a bit of a misperception about Tom doing The Nightwatchman.  Because his debut album, 2007's One Man Revolution was a bit sparse and dry, people probably think his shows will be slow and boring.  I think on some level, even Tom realized that he could be playing to bigger audiences by, well, having a bit more fun.  If you listen to "The Iron Wheel" (a duet with Shooter Jennings) from his second album, 2008's The Fabled City, it's a great sing-along tune. Some of Woody Guthrie's songs were fun, I think Tom caught on to that.  I think his earlier tours were like Bruce's first solo acoustic tour for The Ghost Of Tom Joad. I saw that show twice: it was good, but demanding, and it felt like fun was not allowed. You can pull that off if you're, like Leonard Cohen or something. But Woody, Pete Seeger, even Steve Earle, they have fun at their shows.  I think Tom realized this. This tour was more like Bruce's Devils and Dust tour: he realized that it's ok to do serious solo acoustic shows and still have a good time. Everyone walked out of the show with a smile on their face, but also charged up.

So last night's show was a solo acoustic deal, but he was joined by Carl Restivo from his backing band (Carl is also in Street Sweeper Social Club).  It was an incredibly powerful show.  Like Bruce, Tom lets the audience know when to be quiet, and those moments provided some of the most powerful moments of the night. One was "Battle Hymns," which he dedicated to Iraq Veterans Against the War (learn more about them here). He also did a version of Pink Floyd's "When The Tigers Broke Free" from The Wall (about how the main character's father died in the war), updating the lyrics for 2011.  

But those songs had greater weight, because, as Tom put it, he brought the "heavy metal thunder" on many other songs.  "Save The Hammer For The Man" from his new album, World Wide Rebel Songs, was incredible (the original is a duet with the great Ben Harper, Carl did his best to sing Ben's part, and he did so ably).  "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" was mindblowing - Tom switching to an electric in the middle of the song to melt faces.  Maybe the most rockin song was "This Land Is Your Land." Tom added the "censored" lyrics, which make it much more radical (see the lyrics and a historic performance of that song by Seeger and Springsteen here). He had the whole room jumping - explaining that everyone HAD to jump, as his show was "an irony free zone" even though it was in New York City.  You can see a bootleggy video of the performance here.  It's obvious he has taken notes from Springsteen, but he's clearly doing his own thing.  He finished up by inviting the audience on stage for "World Wide Rebel Songs," instructing one woman in the audience to film the show for YouTube, and demanding that the rest of us stop tweeting and filming and live in the moment.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the after-party (and this is a good place to mention that I got complimentary tickets, in the interest of full disclosure).  I met some nice folks from Tom's management team, and even introduced my wife - who took these excellent photos, and who is a public school teacher and a proud union woman - to Tom.  She got to thank him for his support.  It was a great moment.

One moment that I wish he had was "The Iron Wheel," one of The Nightwatchman's greatest songs.  Shooter Jennings was there, I couldn't believe they didn't perform together! Maybe next time.

On a final note, I'll mention that I got to chat with Mr. Morello the day before - I filmed him for SiriusXM's E Street Radio.  We discussed a recent quote of his from Rolling Stone magazine, where he said that he's the last man in America who thinks Bob Dylan sold out by going electric. So, I'm here to say that Tom has at least one stance that I totally disagree with.  "Hurricane" is way better with a band than it would be without, and ditto for "Lovesick." That's just off the top of my head. But anyway, thank you Tom for a great show, hope to see you again soon. (Tom will be on E Street Radio on September 5 and 6, for listings and rebroadcast times, go here).

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: JOHNNY CASH, DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, SHOOTER JENNINGS AND IKE REILLY

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, every Wednesday morning at 9 am ET I go on the SIRIUS XM channel OutQ. I am a weekly contributor to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. We talk about - surprise! - music.

This week, I'm bringing some really cool records, the first three are records you can hear on our Outlaw Country channel - but probably very few other places. First off, Johnny Cash's final album, American VI: Ain't No Grave. I've talked about this album on The Catholic Channel, it really hit me hard. I think that Rick Rubin, who of course produced the entire American Recordings series of Johnny Cash's albums, may have saved the best for last. 


My favorite rock album of the year thus far is The Big To-Do, by The Drive-By Truckers. Over the past few years, they've become one of my favorite bands, and they are a band I definitely would not have gotten into without Outlaw Country. But the new album is really great: they are kind of like Springsteen meets Skynyrd with Petty and Westerberg thrown in there.  The single, "This Fucking Job," is classic. 

Shooter Jennings is not just a big artist on Outlaw Country, he's also a host. But his new album, Black Ribbons, goes way outside of his usual turf.  It's a concept album featuring guest narration by Stephen King as a DJ, and it sounds like a cross between NIN, Floyd and Alice In Chains. Dude has king size stones to even attempt this.  


Finally, a singer-songwriter who I have followed on and off over the years, Ike Reilly.  Years ago when I was at VH1, my boss made me interview him, which was odd, as the channel wasn't supporting him, and no one knew who he was.  I was grateful for it, though, and now I'm happy to tell people about his new album, Hard Luck Stories (which features a duet with Shooter). 

I plan on writing more about Ike in the future. 

SHOOTER JENNINGS TEAMS UP WITH STEPHEN KING

Singer-songwriter and Outlaw Country host Shooter Jennings is doing a concept album, Black Ribbons, and it will feature guest vocals by none other than author/Outlaw Country fan/Entertainment Weekly columnist Stephen King. It's true! King won't be singing, though. Rather, he'll be doing the voice of "Will O' The Wisp," a radio talk show host being phased out due to government sponsorship.  The album features Shooter's new band, Hierophant, and is due out on March 2. I dig Shooter's Outlaw Country show, I like lots of his songs, and especially his collaboration with The Nightwatchman (aka Tom Morello) "The Iron Wheel."

FISHBONE TO PLAY THE WARPED TOUR

OK, I realize that the headline brands me as "the old guy at the Warped Tour." I admit it, I don't know who many of the bands on this year's Warped Tour are: the only ones I care about other than Fishbone are Bad Religion, Flogging Molly, NOFX and Shooter Jennings (!).

The last time I went to the Warped Tour was years ago: Rancid and The Rollins Band were both on the bill, I don't remember who else. I did actually go to the first one, I think the admission was actually $5 and the headliners were Quicksand, L7 and Sublime (one of my favorite bands already, but they were a terrible mess).

As for Fishbone, I had to check their not-very-updated MySpace page, which indicates that the only old-school members are singer/sax player Angelo Moore (of course! he is one of the greatest frontmen of all time) and bassist John Norwood. Rocky George, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies, is the guitarist and I don't know who the rest of the guys are. But Fishbone always put on a great show. I may actually go this year.