Sings the Ballads of the True West
by Johnny Cash
- Type: Album
- Released: September 1965
- Label: Columbia
- Country: United States
- Length: 1:04:33
- Community rating: 3.47/5 from 2 ratings
Album Notes & Community Reviews
Designed as a thematic double album, Johnny Cash provides spoken-word historical narration between songs detailing 19th-century American frontier life. The minimalist 'boom-chicka-boom' guitar backing serves as a sparse, rhythmic foundation for traditional ballads and original cowboy narratives.
Genres
Descriptors: violence, melodic, crime, acoustic, desert, narrative
Tracklist
- Hiawatha's Vision (2:24)
- The Road to Kaintuck (2:43)
- The Shifting, Whispering Sands, Pt. I (2:52)
- Narration 1 (1:14)
- The Ballad of Boot Hill (2:33)
- I Ride an Old Paint (2:56)
- Narration 2 (0:31)
- Hardin Wouldn't Run (3:47)
- Narration 3 (0:50)
- Mister Garfield (3:45)
- The Streets of Laredo (3:39)
- Narration 4 (0:24)
- Johnny Reb (2:26)
- A Letter from Home (2:33)
- Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie (2:26)
- Mean as Hell (3:07)
- Sam Hall (3:15)
- 25 Minutes to Go (3:12)
- The Blizzard (3:51)
- Narration 5 (0:39)
- Sweet Betsy from Pike (3:16)
- Green Grow the Lilacs (2:45)
- Narration 6 (1:00)
- Stampede (2:59)
- The Shifting, Whispering Sands, Pt. II (2:29)
- Reflections (2:45)
Credits
- Johnny Cash - primary artist, liner notes [notes by], written-by, arranged by [arr]
- Frederic Remington - illustration ["in a stampede"]
- Bettmann Archive - photography by
- Frank Bez - photography by [cover photo]
- Don Law - producer [produced by]
- Frank Jones - producer [produced by]
- June Carter - written-by
- Mary M. Hadler - written-by
- V.C. Gilbert - written-by
- Carl Perkins - written-by
- Ramblin' Jack Elliott - written-by
- Merle Kilgore - written-by
- Dearest Dean - written-by
- Maybelle Carter - written-by
- Tex Ritter - arranged by [arr]
- Shel Silverstein - written-by
- Harlan Howard - written-by
- Peter LaFarge - written-by