Released October 1, 1964 Producer Don Law
Frank Jones Release date 1 October 1964 Genres Country music, Folk music | Length 31:13 Artist Johnny Cash Label Columbia Records | |
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Recorded March 5, 1964 – June 30, 1964 Bitter Tears Ballads of the American Indian
(1964) Orange Blossom Special
(1965) Similar Johnny Cash albums, Country music albums | ||
Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian is a concept album and twentieth album released by singer Johnny Cash in 1964 on Columbia Records. It is one of several Americana records by Cash; as its title implies, the tracks on the album focus exclusively on the history of and problems facing Native Americans in the United States. Cash had been convinced that his ancestry included members of the Cherokee tribe, and this partly served as inspiration for recording Bitter Tears, but as he would later learn on researching his ancestry, his ancestry was Scottish, English, and Scots-Irish. Throughout the album, Cash concentrates on the harsh and unfair treatment of the indigenous peoples of North America.
Contents
In 2014 a tribute album Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited was released with contributions by Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Emmylou Harris, Bill Miller and others.
Songwriting
The songs were mostly written by Peter La Farge (5 songs), 2 were by Cash, and the final track was by Cash and Johnny Horton. The first song, "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow", by La Farge, concerns the contemporary loss of Seneca nation land in Pennsylvania due to the construction of the Kinzua Dam in the early 1960s. "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", tells the story of Ira Hayes, a young Marine of Pima descent who participated in the flag raising on Iwo Jima and became an instant celebrity, only to die drunk and in poverty on the Gila River Reservation where he was born. Both compositions, which outside the choruses are performed in spoken word, tell the story of how the U.S. Government broke treaties with the Native Americans by constructing a dam to divert water from the Pima. Lafarge's song "Custer" mocks the popular veneration of General George Custer, defeated t Little Big Horn. A version of the song is sometimes sung in concert by Buffy Sainte-Marie as "Custer Song".
Cash rerecorded "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow" decades after Bitter Tears and released it on Unearthed with the lyrics altered to describe his relationship with and devotion to June Carter Cash; the track itself was a duet with the latter, making what ended up being one of thir final recorded duets.
Reception
Bitter Tears and one single were successful, the album rising to No. 2 and "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, but not without a lot of effort. Though it started out quickly on the Billboard chart, seven weeks later the song was floundering in the mid-teens. Cash was unhappy with the lack of radio airplay "Ira Hayes" was getting. He paid for a full-page ad which appeared in the August 22, 1964 issue of Billboard magazine, calling some DJ's and programmers "gutless" for not playing the song, asking why they were afraid to do so. He left the question unanswered.
He followed the letter up with a campaign to support the song, sending out more than 1,000 copies he paid for himself, to radio stations across America. By September 19, the song had reached number 3 in Billboard.
In 2010, the Western Writers of America chose "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
Main
Additional personnel
Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)
Singles - Billboard (North America)
Reissue and revival
The album was included on the Bear Family Records box set Come Along and Ride This Train in 1984.
In 2011, after Antonino D'Ambrosio published A Heartbeat and a Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears, there was renewed interest in the album. D'Ambrosio acted as executive producer, and also made a documentary film about, the re-recording of the songs by various artists, chosen for their personal interest in the album. Called Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited, it was released by Sony Masterworks in 2014. The film is We're Still Here: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited, and it first aired on PBS on February 1, 2016.
Song listing
Performers shown in brackets:
Songs
1As Long as the Grass Shall Grow6:15
2Apache Tears2:39
3Custer2:24