Johnny Cash: Country with a splash of protest

With his baritone voice and his guitar it’s easy to see why his music was very popular down south. being very compatible with most bluegrass and country.

While it was his more catchy songs that were published during the 1960s. Johnny cash no doubt influenced by Pete Seeger and others, decided to be the mouthpiece for Native American rights. While some of this was misguided by old prejudiced practices in 1964 he recorded an album called Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. Now because this album didn’t fit with American romanticism of the cowboys it was never released due to fear of the public backlash.

In Recording this album and Cash cemented himself in the Western/Country genre of music. 1963 shortly before he used his stardom to advocate for indigenous people Cash released what must be easily his most recognizable song Ring of Fire.

Most of Johnny cash Protest songs were written during the 1960s songs like

1. Don’t Take Your Guns To Town- this song was seen as a cautionary tale against glorifying guns

The next three songs are all from the album Bitter Tears and as such cover the topic of Native American rights as the dark acts committed against them during the western expansion of the USA during the late 1800s

Johnny Cash courageously went were no one had gone before in the genre of Western/Country. It was during this period in which he created his signature style.

Here he is on the Pete Seeger talking about his activism that set the tone for the album that I think set the tone of the rest of his career musically.

While he wrote the book in the 1960s his final piece Hurt (which was a cover culminates the journey he went through during the 1960s and 70s in a very sincere way. You can still feel the warmth in his voice that he had in the start of his career.

The End