If you buy enough records, one of them will eventually be by Johnny Cash.
I bought this Johnny Cash compilation one afternoon from a record shop just off Albany Road in Cardiff. Albany Road was your usual former thriving high street that had descended into charity shops and gambling shops when everyone started going into the city centre instead. It had a few nice places to eat and drink, and might have improved recently; it's been many years since I went down there. The charity shops often had some good stuff, and D'Vinyl was just off the near end of it, so sometimes it was worth a browse down that road alone to find some strange records.
About a third of the way along, on a side road was a record shop I never knew the name of. I think it was basically someone's living room, which is also the possible explanation of how it could be a viable business - they must have been paying no rent. The stock was almost all dirt cheap and, in all honesty, of little-to-no value. I can't remember there being a great system for organising the stock, so you had to browse through hundreds of records that were pure junk if you wanted to find anything of interest. CDs were comically priced. Here is a complete list of things I bought in there over my two years in Cardiff:
- Electric Frankenstein - I Was a Teenage Shutdown (cd album): £3.70
- The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony (cd single): 10p
- Beck - Loser (cd single): 10p
- Therapy? - Teethgrinder (cd single): 10p
- Kula Shaker - Pigs, Peasants and Astronauts (cd album): £1
- This best of Johnny Cash: £2
At the sum total of £7, I doubt I was their best customer. Still, that Therapy? cd is great.
I'm not a big Johnny Cash fan. I'm very much of the age that I first heard of him properly was when he was covering Hurt by Nine Inch Nails. The American Recordings were huge when they came out, and it was hard to not get a little bit excited about the idea of him covering NIN and Soundgarden. But I never bought any of those albums in the end. If I saw them now cheaply, I might be tempted to pick them up, but I'm only really in it for the covers. He did do a fantastic job with Hurt.
I also remember watching the film Walk the Line on a flight, possibly to or from Australia, and thinking he was an interesting musician. I'd be lying if I said I was definitely awake for the whole film though, but that is more a reflection on the duration of the flight than the film necessarily.
But the truth is, I just don't care for his music enough to spend much time with it. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've played this record, and that hand could be missing up to two fingers and still probably be true. It's definitely possible to respect a musician without actually liking their music; that's how I feel about Johnny Cash. Maybe that makes me a bad music fan. I guess buying this record was a nod towards being the sort of music fan who dabbles in the music all the legendary musicians made, even if that's not actually who I am (a fact I'm finally ok with). (Ghost) Riders in the Sky is quite good, and It Ain't Me Babe I'm familiar with from the sprawling Bob Dylan boxset I have. Will Whitmore recently covered Busted, although I see that Johnny was covering it too. Ring of Fire never fails to baffle me.
As a final note, when I looked this up on Discogs I discovered that there are 900 Johnny Cash compilations listed - 900! He also has over 100 regular albums. That's ridiculous.
Format: 12"
Tracks: 16
Cost: £2 second hand
Bought: Albany Road record shop, Cardiff
When: 02/02/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: none
