Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian
| Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||
| Studio album by Johnny Cash | ||||
| Released | October 1, 1964 | |||
| Recorded | March 5, 1964 – June 30, 1964 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 31:13 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer |
|
|||
| Johnny Cash chronology | ||||
|
||||
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |
  link
|
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.
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.
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 at Little Big Horn. A version of the song is sometimes sung in concert by Buffy Sainte-Marie as "Custer Song".
...
Wikipedia