Music Before Madness

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With affectionate new liner notes by John Carter Cash and four previously unreleased tracks, {|Johnny Cash|}'s 1975 Children's Album is returned to print in CD form, and it's about time. So much of Cash's dark side has been in the press since his death in 2003 that the loving and lighthearted fare here (some of which has shown up in anthologies over the years) is a much-needed reminder of the private man's true nature: As the son writes in the liner notes, the father was "a fun loving, easy going, laughing man who was, in scores of ways, as big a kid as I have ever been." Working with musicians that included some studio stalwarts supplementing his impeccable band -- featuring {|Carl Perkins|} and {|Bob Wootton|} on guitars, {|Marshall Grant|} on bass and {|W. S. "Fluke" Holland|} on drums -- Cash didn't have to go far to find material: He wrote or co-wrote 10 of the 15 songs, and those tunes are just plain fun. There's some nice comedic banter between Cash and {|June Carter Cash|} on the whimsical "I Got a Boy And His Name Is John"; "Little Magic Glasses," with a lovely string arrangement humming behind Cash's tender vocal, is a touching evocation of childhood wonder with a Brothers Grimm twist; a playful talking blues, "Dinosaur Song," offers a concise lesson in reptilian history and ponders what it might have been like to be a kid with a tyrannosaurus rex for a pet. Over soft, fingerpicked acoustic guitar accompaniment, Cash recounts a true-life tale on "There's a Bear in the Woods" (in which one of {|Roy Orbison|}'s sons figures prominently), while beloved standards "Old Shep" and "Grandfather's Clock" add a proper sentimental tinge to the proceedings. Gotta love this man.