CHRIS GANTRY At the House of Cash Vinyl LP 2017

Away Away
Different
Tear
Dreamin’ Of A Leavin’ Train
Saddest Song Ever Sung
Flower Of The Mountain
Hatred For Feeny
Clair Oh Clair
Oobabalap
The Lizard
See You Around

In 1973, I had come out of ten years of non-stop songwriting street life in Nashville. I had been busted by the Feds for growing marijuana on my farm. Johnny Cash called me and asked me if I wanted to come live at his place on the lake till the heat blew over, which I did... in that time, we talked and he agreed to let me write for his publishing company and gave me the green light to do an album in his studio. I was exhausted from burning so hard from the previous ten years, in ’69, I stood on stage with Tim Hardin at Woodstock, singing Bobby Darin’s ‘Simple Song Of Freedom’. It was the end of an era, burnout time for endless troubadours who had ridden the waves of the Sixties. I had been experimenting with multiple guitar tunings and had given myself up lyrically to what a free form jazz sax player experiences when they play their spontaneous solos. I was burned out on the traditional pop lyric art form - thus, the songs on this record, ‘At The House Of Cash’. When I finished it, John and June listened to it one night. A few days later he sidled up to me and said in his iconic Johnny Cash voice, ‘Chris, June and I listened to your record last night and I don’t think even the drug people are gonna understand it.’ WOW. To me that was a compliment. I had transcended the culture that had been driving the world for the last 12 years. I had succeeded.”flying saucers and spacey synth notes subbing for steel. Then ‘Different’ pits his rasping pipes against mellow orchestration, evoking debauched Nilssonesque vibes. Finally, the raving spoken-word-scape ‘Tear’ is rife with flutes and woodwinds, touches of sitar, tabla and violin, courtesy of the group Oregon. That’s just the first three songs.