As promised, this week we have various artists covering Johnny Cash songs.

Betty Dylan “Folsom Prison Blues”
I’m really digging Betty Dylan lately. I just love the part where he tells us what it was like to shoot a man in Reno.

Jawbone “Get Rhythm”
Johnny must have sounded like this when he was wired on that trucker speed. Guaranteed to get your blood flowing.

Beat Farmers “Big River”
The sound quality isn’t the best, but what the heck. This is from Live At The Spring Valley Inn. The CD is drawn from live recordings intended for a demo to get a record deal.

I still miss Country Dick Montana. The man was fierce, fearless, and stinking drunk. I want to be like him when I grow up.

Pine Valley Cosmonauts “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
I recently gifted my audience with the Telly Savalas version of this song. This is what it sounds like when it’s played well.

Neko Case “Wayfaring Stranger”
Update: Alert Reader John informs me that this recording is taken from Irene Trudel’s WMFU show.

I don’t like Neko Case. Not personally, of course. I’m sure she’s a very nice person. But her music does absolutely nothing for me. People tell me I’m supposed to like her. I’ve tried to like her. I want to like her. I’ve bought her music and paid to hear her perform live. But her music leaves me completely cold.

This is the only thing she’s ever done that I’ve enjoyed. I think it’s because of Jon Rauhouse’s banjo playing. The arrangement is very spare and lovely. It sounds like it was recorded for a radio show, but I have no information on where it came from.

Any fans of My Name Is Earl out there? Karma recently dropped something good in my lap. Specifically Karma gave me the deluxe edition of the Johnny Cash Unearthed box set.

For those unfamiliar with this opus, it’s a five-CD set. One CD is a best-of drawn from the American Recordings albums. The other four CDs are previously unreleased recordings from those sessions. The deluxe edition also includes a 100-page hardcover book with extensive notes from Johnny about every song.

It was inevitable that I’d do a Johnny Cash post so I might as well wallow in it. This week we’ll have Johnny covering other people’s songs. Next week we’ll have other people covering Johnny’s songs.

Devil’s Right Hand (Steve Earle)
Since Steve Earle was so clearly influenced by Johnny Cash it’s only appropriate that JC would record one of his songs. It’s quite the rollicking tune.

Redemption Song (Bob Marley)
I never thought I’d hear Johnny Cash doing a reggae song. Once again he makes it his own and reveals what a talented songwriter Bob Marley was. And that’s quite a statement coming from somebody who doesn’t particularly like reggae. The other guy on this song is Joe Strummer from the Clash.

The Mercy Seat (Nick Cave)
This song has always scared me. I’ve always wondered what somebody thinks about as they’re electrocuted.

Solitary Man (Neil Diamond)
Strip away Neil Diamond’s bombast and you get a song of yearning, hope, and disappointment.

You’ll Never Walk Alone (Rodgers and Hammerstein)
I was introduced to this song by Jerry Lewis singing it at the end of his Labor Day telethon. I always just thought it was a mawkish song sung by strung-out, sleep-deprived, percodan-addicted showbiz hacks. But Johnny showed me that was not necessarily the case.

I love a good murder ballad. So much so that it worries my wife sometimes. There’s just something about a song that crams sin, repentance, and retribution into three minutes.

So here’s a violent slice of American musical tradition.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Stagger Lee”
You’ve gotta go some to find a song with more profanity and violence than this one. Definitely not work-friendly.

The Handsome Family “Knoxville Girl”
I absolutely love the Handsome Family. A husband a wife who write some fantastic goth-country-folk music, they also have a deft touch with traditional tunes.

The Pine Valley Cosmonauts with Otis Clay “Banks of the Ohio”
This is from volume two of The Executioner’s Last Songs, a series of three CDs sold to benefit the fight against the death penalty. All of the songs are about crime, death, and punishment and feature the Cosmonauts with various guest performers.

Muleskinner Jones “How Come That Blood On Your Coat Sleeve?”
I wish that this guy would quit with the jokey singing voice, but he’s done some pretty demented stuff over his career. His original song “Death Row Hoedown” is really out there.

Stevie Wonder “Frankie and Johnny”
I have my doubts whether this is Stevie Wonder, but that’s how the song is labeled. If it really is it must be from the “Little Stevie” child-prodigy portion of his career. And if it is, then it’s pretty bizarre to have a kid singing about lovers killing each other.

Here are a few songs that recently came up on my iPod’s shuffle play.

The Beat Farmers “Beat Generation” (Rod McKuen)
The Beat Farmers are criminally underappreciated. This song has some serious swagger.

Frank Black “Hang On To Your Ego” (Beach Boys)
This song originally appeared on the Beach Boys Pet Sounds album with the title “I Know There’s An Answer.” Wikipedia has the whole story of why its name was changed.

Razorlight “Hey Ya” (Outkast)
Quite the little burst of sunshine. That’s the London Community Gospel Choir singing backup.

Tegan and Sara “When You Were Mine” (Prince)
When you get rid of the cheesy 80s synthesizers you realize what a great songwriter Prince is.

Nirvana “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” (Lead Belly)
This is pretty much the only worthwhile thing that ever came out of the MTV Unplugged series. I still get chills when I hear it.

My wife has been riding her stationary bicycle in the basement lately. While she’s riding she’s been watching musicals with our daughter, so I’ve been hearing The Sound of Music and Damn Yankees wafting up the basement stairs.

So what the heck, let’s celebrate the glory of the American musical.

The Lovehaters “Look At Me I’m Sandra Dee (Reprise)” (from Grease)
This comes to us from an indie CD that’s a tribute to Grease. It’s called Down to GREASE on Holiday.

I remember that after the Grease movie left the theaters my mom got a great deal on a jean jacket with the movie’s logo embroidered on the back. I cut out the embroidery and wore the thing for years even though it still had a very faint outline of that logo.

Gotan Project/Sarah Vaughan “Whatever Lola Wants” (from Damn Yankees)
Also known as The Only Musical Straight Men Will Sing Along To. I don’t consider remixes to be covers, but since Sarah Vaughan wasn’t in the original Broadway cast of Damn Yankees this one qualifies in my book.

Little Richard “I Feel Pretty” (From West Side Story)
Boy, does he feel pretty. I don’t think that any other man could pull this one off.

Captian Tractor “If I Were A Rich Man” (From Fiddler On The Roof)
I almost posted a version of this song by the Magnetic Fields that’s all ukulele and clinically depressed singing. I went with this one because it keeps the joy of the original version while still bringing something new to the song.

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes “My Favorite Things” (from The Sound of Music)
The lyrics to this song have always bothered me. It’s like Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the whole thing by picking random words out of a rhyming dictionary. Are brown paper packages tied up with string really anybody’s favorite thing? That one’s not even in my top 1000.