Johnny Cash’s diverse passion for music led him to do one of the greatest cover albums of all time, American IV.
Moreover, Beck is an all-embracing music enthusiast, collaborating with everyone from Childish Gambino to Will Ferrell. Cash and Beck together, though, seem hard to believe coexisting, but back in 1995 Beck unquestionably opened a Hollywood concert for The Man in Black catching his attention.
Cash didn’t do anything about the booking, “I listened to him backstage and I was so impressed with the way that he could do Appalachian music, like a Hillbilly, he’s really good at it. And then his own sort of songs,” he said.
Cash maintained a particular appreciation for the track ‘Rowboat’, saying: “It sounded like something I might have written or might have done in the sixties when I was going through some weird times.” In fact, Cash loved it so much that he made his own version of it on his 1996 record Unchained.
As Beck’s part in the topic, he states that the tune came about somewhat superficial. “I was playing this country club in Los Angeles,” he reveals, “Called The Palamino… I made friends with the pedal-steel player from the house and I asked him if he would be interested in record with me.”
“He said ‘yeah sure’, so about two days later I was going to pick him up and take him down to the studio,” Beck states. “And I realised I didn’t have any country songs on hand. I didn’t have any pedal steel worthy songs, so I quickly wrote this song so that I wasn’t empty-handed when I picked the guy up.”
Keep going for the full interview below and listen to Cash’s version of Rowboat.