Track Listing

1. Understand Your Man - Dwight Yoakam
2. I Still Miss Someone - Rosanne Cash
3. Train of Love - Bob Dylan
4. Get Rhythm - Little Richard
5. Folsom Prison Blues - Keb' Mo'
6. I Walk the Line - Travis Tritt
7. Big River - Hank Williams, Jr.
8. Give My Love to Rose - Bruce Springsteen
9. Don't Take Your Guns to Town - Charlie Robison
10. Flesh and Blood - Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris
11. Hardin Wouldn't Run - Steve Earle, Steve Earle
12. Hey Porter - Marty Stuart
13. Meet Me in Heaven - Janette Carter, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Earl Scruggs, Connie Smith, Marty Stuart, Darrin Vincent
14. For Luther (I Walk the Line Reprise) - Mudcats

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44109 in Music
• Released on: 2002-10-14
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
As the Man in Black celebrates his 70th birthday, he looks back on a career not only of legendary performances, but of remarkable songs that capture a bygone America, in vignettes of trains, rivers, rebels, street-corner shoeshine boys, and displaced lovers, moving on, never to return. To honor that contribution, now part of America's musical heritage, more than a dozen luminaries of country, rock, and folk--including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Sheryl Crow--gather to interpret Cash's word portraits of the downtrodden and disenfranchised. Nearly every performance is a keeper, though some deliver a special thrill: Dylan introducing his rendition of "Train of Love" as a song he used to sing before he ever wrote songs himself; Little Richard turning "Get Rhythm" into even more of a rockabilly raver; and Cash's daughter, Rosanne, giving "I Still Miss Someone" a clean, sweet reading that underscores its poignant message. Yet it's Springsteen, in a cover of "Give My Love to Rose," who comes to own the project, laying bare the pain, hope, spirituality, love, and despair that Cash wove into the framework of almost all of his songs. An extraordinary set from, yes, kindred spirits all. --Alanna Nash

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I purchased this cd at the same time as the other current Cash tribute, Dressed In Black, and I must say that this is the lesser of the two works by far. It seems to me that several of the "big names" on Kindred Spirits just plain go bust. Bob Dylan may be one of the greatest songwriters of all time, but his rendition of "Train of Love" is pathetic (tempo too slow, voice sounds like he swallowed a handful of gravel). Bruce Springsteen fares little better on "Give My Love To Rose", and don't even get me started on Keb' Mo'. I saw him on the CMT special about this cd and he claimed to have never heard "Folsum Prison Blues" before and that he was not familiar with Johnny Cash, but he did this because Marty Stuart wanted him to. So why was he included on a tribute to such a great man, when he obviously could care less? Now for the good news . . . this cd does contain some wonderful cuts. Hank Jr. comes through big time on "Big River", as does Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart, and Little Richard rocks on "Get Rhythm". The trio of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sheryl Crow, and Emmylou Harris blend beautifully. Overall, worth adding to your collection, but could have been much better.

Keb Mo? Puh-leez
If you honestly can't bring yourself to say the words "I shot a man in Reno/ just to watch him die," I guess that's okay. There's just one requirement with that condition, and that is that you don't ever, EVER attempt to sing Folsom Prison Blues. Whoever let Keb Mo do that song on an album without the most important line should be fired, and Keb Mo should be kept from recording ever again. Heresy. Blasphemy. Scandal. A pox on everyone who let this happen.

Well produced tribute
The songs of Johnny Cash have once again laid the foundation for a tribute album, and this one may be the *one*. Despite some tentative entries by some well-meaning younger artists we have a perennial here. (And I did not detect any computer-driven sounds).
Yes, Charlie Robison's version of "Don't Take Your Guns To Town" (I wish Bruce S., who did "Give My Love To Rose", and Charlie R. switched tunes), Kevin "Keb' Mo'" Moore's "Folsom Prison Blues", and Travis Tritt's "I Walk The Line", are good listenable, respectful tributes but somehow fall short on their own. "I Walk The Line" is an exotic beat ballad and the original is the one that works for me. Then again there's Jaye P. Morgan's...JK, JP.
Not to dwell on younger-older, especially on a from-the-heart set like this, but the seasoned pipes of Little Richard, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen really carry the message. Richard, at age 69, delivers on "Get Rhythm", a melody finely tuned to his staccato vocal style, though a lower key might have been even more effective; his piano playing is well-mixed. His longtime sideman Jesse Boyce is on bass. Bob is not in his best voice on "Train Of Love", but the arrangement is so good that one is not concerned about the occasional roughness. Bruce's contribution could easily take a place on any of his own albums, though the track runs a little long.
At the end of the day, it's Mr. Johnny Cash, who seizes the moment. Along with Janette Carter, a Carter family member, influential artist, and founder of the Carter Family Music Memorial, and June Carter Cash, et. al, he sings "Meet Me In Heaven", a monumental reflection for the ages. His is the last voice we hear and it's sensitively presented.