Undoubtedly, there are numerous characteristics that put Johnny Cash among the bests. The power of his voice, his lyrical genius, his composition skills, and many other things made him one of the unforgettable figures in music history. But judging by a recent conversation with Channel 4, what made Cash who he was, according to Rick Rubin, was his mastery of controlling his voice.
“Yeah, let me see if I can even answer that. I’m not sure I can answer that,” the producer said, having difficulty to chose the best musical characteristic of Cash. “I think one of Johnny’s greatest strengths as an artist was his ability to take a material and sing it in a way where we believe this is what he’s saying, we believe him.”
He continued, “He had the voice of authority, and I think it’s a skill set he had because he was able to deliver many songs with that conviction. He wasn’t a great singer in terms of – he didn’t have much of a range – his ability was to tell you a story and have you know he meant it. That was his strength. So I can’t tell you how he did that, but he did it. That’s why he was great.”
Throughout his musical journey, Cash liked to keep the instrumentation simple: his guitar tunes were very accessible. But he conveyed such seriousness and power to these simple chords with his voice that you could almost feel palpably every emotion he wanted to communicate.
When you listen to Johnny Cash’s songs, you can observe a simple formula: there is a simple melody and an engaging narration, and his voice emerges as the main element that carries the song. Moreover, he was a self-taught singer, but he could adapt his voice to whatever story he was going to tell or whatever emotion he was going to convey in an extraordinary way.
