catapult magazine

i wasn’t sure if this would start another large strand of people disagreeing with me, but i thought i’d better just play it safe and begin a new topic.

now to the subject at hand: johnny cash.

as i said, i like the guys stuff, but i don’t really consider him a skilled musician. he’s got a great voice which i’m sure he put some effort into developing, but for the most part it’s just naturally great. even johnny himself in his autobiography refers to it as “the gift”.

he’s certainly not a very technically able guitar player or particularly good song writer. most of his classic performances are covers. “ring of fire” was probably his highest writing achievment and he then chose to mar his recording of it with those silly mexican trumpets.

now if you want to talk about his “spirit” of “soul” or some other intangible ability that affects the music someone creates i have to say ahead of time that i agree with you. johnny cash has that in spades, but i don’t see that as skill. i see it as a natural ability. not something that was worked for and eventually attained.

He sure does. He’s probably the most technically proficient gutarist alive.

But listen to Yngwie and Johnny Cash and you’ll hear the difference between skill and artfulness.

You don’t even have to listen. Just check out the webpage border, read half his bio, and note the transcendent song titles…

yep. “skilled.”

I wonder if Yngwie ever played the boogie woogie like Luther played the boogie woogie.