Posts Tagged ‘johnny’

Focus on Ventura Aniversario 45 Johnny

Teenager Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another prep school for failing his classes and having a really bad attitude. Here he recounts his adventures and observations during a weekend on his own in New York City.

I remember being quite shocked at Holden’s anti-social thoughts and non-stop profanity and not liking him at all when I first read this book. It was a pleasure to reread it forty years later and find that my feelings for him had changed a lot; now I find him a bright, charming, and pitiable combination of the social misfit from “Napoleon Dynamite,” the angry young man from “Rebel Without a Cause,” and a bit of Eddie Haskell, too. His penchant for vulgarity and manic emotionality remind me of a scared puppy who’s all bark and no bite; he’s in desperate need of attention and affection and luckily, he gets it.

This classic character study of a troubled boy is highly recommended for mature readers.
45 Aniversario Johnny Ventura

Cash Johnny in Live and me

This DVD of JOHNNY CASH IN IRELAND in 1993 can be reasonably compared to his concert DVD recorded a year later, JOHNNY CASH — LIVE AT MONTREAUX 1994. Both are very enjoyable, but IN IRELAND is better, in my opinion!

This concert for TV is very similar to the Johnny Cash TV show format that Johnny had been using for about 25 years, showcasing his many musical friends and relatives in his backing band for much of the stage time, but if you like them like Johnny did (and like I do) then this is a good thing! IN IRELAND has Kris Kristofferson and a much later incarnation of the Carter Family, featuring June, her sister Helen, and June’s daughter Rosie (not to be confused with Roseanne, of course). June is more lively and into it all, much more enthusiastically and more relaxed than in the MONTREUX concert, a year later.

All the Carter ladies get to sing lead, and also June and Johnny’s son sings lead, and he even gets a loud crowd response when introduced!

All the singing is stronger than on the 1994 MONTREUX DVD, and the TV cameras are a bit more polished and professional than the MONTREUX DVD.

The only way that the MONTREUX DVD beats this one is that it has a 20 minute section of six songs done solo by Johnny Cash with just his guitar, in honor of his 1994 debut album on the American Records label, produced by Rick Rubin, who would revamp Johnny’s career with an MTV hit that year, “Delia’s Gone.” But other than this interesting segment, I think the IN IRELAND is a much better show, more fun, and sounding better.

IN IRELAND can also be compared to the 1971 DVD called JOHNNY CASH IN DENMARK, which is better than both of these 1990s shows! IN DENMARK is Johnny Cash in much younger days, after the drug years were mostly behind him, and enjoying his most lucrative career peak, with two recent live albums recorded in prisons, and a hit TV show in the same era, and featuring Mother Maybelle Carter, June, Helen, and Anita, the Statler Brothers, and Carl Perkins. IN DE
Johnny Cash Live in