Johnny Cash Blood Sweat & Tears

Also available in a 3-pack with RING OF FIRE and BITTER TEARS: BALLADS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS.
Personnel includes: Johnny Cash, The Carter Family.
Producers: Don Law, Frank Jones.
Reissue producer: Bob Irwin.
One of Johnny Cash's many 1960's concept albums, BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS is dedicated to chronicling the daily lives and the folklore of American laborers. By the early 1960s (when this album was released), Cash had moved away from the spare, "boom-chick" sound he had perfected at Sun Records, adopting instead a folkier milieu. On BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS, banjos, autoharps, and background vocals by the Carter Family flesh out arrangements built around Cash's voice and acoustic guitar.
Cash, who grew up picking cotton and later served a four-year stint in the Air Force before his music career took off, has an affinity for songs about hard work and working-class resentment. As a result, this album benefits from an authenticity that is less apparent in some of Cash's other concept albums from this period. A masterly, heart-rending version of "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" kicks off the album; other highlights include Harlan Howard's "Busted" (the same song was a hit for Ray Charles), "Tell Him I'm Gone," "Casey Jones," and the Sheb Wooley composition "Roughneck."

• Genre: Country
• Format: Vinyl