For example, Duke Ellington hosted a 1969 jazz concert for his 70th birthday, and Merle Haggard came to play country music. Though musical performances were always commonplace at the White House, they began to represent a wider slice of popular culture in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Johnny Cash | Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The White House hosted an entertainment seriesĭuring his abbreviated tenure as president, Richard Nixon hosted a series of musical acts at the White House. Cash was in a position that most others were not, though: he was able to play his protest song directly to the President of the United States. Like many others, Johnny Cash used his song lyrics to decry the war. Artists declared their support or condemnation of the war through music. There are uncomfortable duds, sure, but sometimes instrumental touches manage to bring a song to life, whether it is the loudly mixed jaw harp on "Sold Out of Flagpoles" or the rubato harmonica on the relatively corny "Let There Be Country." "One Piece at a Time" was the work of the fine country songwriter Wayne Kemp, but much of the other good material on this recording comes from Cash himself.The Vietnam War kicked off one of the more polarizing periods in American music.
"Committed to Parkview" belongs to the unfortunately tiny genre of country songs about mental institutions, and might be the best of them all, seriously rivaling Faron Young's "Rubber Room." "Love Has Lost Again" is one of his bittersweet ballads along the lines of "I Still Miss Someone," while unpretentious numbers such as "Go on Blues" represent the type of music that slips sneakily into a listener's consciousness, staying for days. His radio hit "One Piece at a Time" detailed a small victory in the common man's battle over corporate greed, and it certainly wasn't the only great song on this overlooked album. His choice of subjects solidified the impression of him as an all-American mainstream type who happened to side with the hippies and hang out with Bob Dylan, a fact of great significance during this era, and which might have sustained Cash had he decided to begin performing on harpischord. The trademark shuffling twang of the Tennessee Three remained an attractive feel, unique and apparently impossible to copy, but there was more to it than that. In the mid-'70s, Johnny Cash was holding his own against the onslaught of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and intense funk that ruled the airwaves.
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