Listening this Week: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears

 I found a book that looked quite interesting- A Heartbeat and a Guitar by Antonino D’Ambrosio - a book focused on Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears album.

I suspected it might be either a nice hidden gem (or maybe not) and comes after really extensively digging into The Cash Discography.

The book wasn’t the light read I expected and it’s focus is equally on the Native American Rights movement, the early 60s NYC folk scene, Ira Hayes, Peter LaFarge and of course, Cash; but it isn’t a particularly easy read- a bit too academic and scattered for my liking- though certainly full of facts.

To be fair, I had just watched a Cash doc that covered the same time frame. Johnny Cash and Me was a reflection of the filmmaker who made a film in the 60s of spending 8 months with Cash called Johnny Cash: The Man His World His Music

It was hardly big budget or essential viewing but I’m glad I watched it. It is interesting to see Cash’s humility and how he constantly tried to help everyone who came to him.

I tend to think of Cash as one of the last truly great artists that every American relates to. I suspect there are a few still living- Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton- but the list is small.

The Guardian puts Bitter Tears on its list of 101 strangest records on Spotify. I tend to agree with Allmusic’s assessment. When I listened to it 50 years later devoid of any controversy, I just hear another Cash ‘theme’ album and a pretty solid one at that.

Cash made a lot of theme albums but what stands out to me is that Bitter Tears came out in 1964. Not 1974, not even 1969. It famously caused Cash to take an ad out in Billboard challenging radio stations to play it.


When I started to collect Cash records in the late 00s/early 10s, this was certainly a favorite. Removed from historical context, it seems another album from some body who had themes- patriotic songs or Western songs or comedy songs or train songs or whatever.


This is six years before Dee Brown’s seminal “Bury Me at Wounded Knee” and almost a decade before Marlon Brando’s Oscar refusal, and a year before Donovan took a Buffy Saint Marie song onto the charts.

Neither D’Ambrosio’s book or Elfstrom’s documentary are essential purchases, but both are great glimpses into one of music's more interesting albums.