December 7 - Solitary Man

Of course Rick Rubin was the link. The bearded producer who has produced just about everyone. I love his production style, and what he did to resurrect Johnny Cash's career was nothing short of magic. He allowed him to do what he did best, sit with an acoustic guitar and sing songs. Bringing in Tom Petty's Heartbreakers as a backing band was also brilliant, and the result was six CDs and a box set (and possibly some more hidden gems). Solitary Man was on American III: Solitary Man from 2000, and he won his third Grammy for this performance in 2001.

Now Johnny Cash was no stranger to collaborations, as a member of the Highwaymen with Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson, or just with Willie, or with his wife, June Carter Cash, to name but a few. However, for me, the ultimate collaboration never happened. After a chance meeting in a hotel, or so the story goes, he was going to perform one of his earliest hits with an avant garde composer/rock musician/jazz musician who is best known in Norway for a hit song about sexual deviances - or rather a sexual deviant. If you heed his advice, you will not eat any yellow snow. And the concert where Johnny Cash was supposed to appear happened during his last tour with a rock band. He only worked in public with orchestral works after this. So the questions are as follows: Why didn't Johnny Cash appear on stage with this musician and his band, who is the musician, what was the song he was supposed to sing, what album was the recording of this song on(without Johnny Cash singing), and what year was it released? It is a fairly loose reggae version of the song - this band was spectacular, but it fell apart between the European leg and the second North American leg of the tour.