“Someone without peer”: Rick Rubin on the artist no one could compete with
The one job of any producer is trying to pick out one element of an artist that no one else can. There’s a certain magic that comes with making any mainstream record, and someone can spend their entire lives trying to nail down that magic whenever they get into the studio and begin jamming. While Rick Rubin can take artists of any genre and turn them into the greatest thing that anyone has ever heard, he was always after artists who didn’t seem to have any particular scene behind them.
Because look at the type of artists that he’s worked with in the past. Groups like Public Enemy or Metallica may have their niche audiences in the hip-hop and metal genres, respectively, but one of their trademarks is that they have a singular sound, and even when they are working with Rubin, the producer normally finds a way to remind them that people want to hear something that sounds authentic to them rather than a new and improved version of what they are supposed to be.
Then again, that’s what all artists should strive for. It’s fun for most people to try to keep up with trends and see if they can latch themselves onto a hip new sound for the time, but if they take one step out of line or even play it too close to the chest, it’s going to look disingenuous, so it’s better to find one’s own voice instead of morphing into what everyone thinks you should be.
As Rubin entered the 1990s, he became much more interested in hearing an artist’s voice beyond any trend. He had already turned himself onto Tom Petty in the late 1980s with Full Moon Fever, but now, after working with the heartland rocker on the album Wildflowers, he had started to understand how to make something that sounded honest. If Petty was an authentic rocker, though, there wasn’t a single dishonest bone in Johnny Cash’s body.
While Rubin had been a fan of Cash’s early work, there was still some question about whether or not he should take him on during the final years of his life. He was still considered a legend, but considering the embarrassing moments he got up to in the 1980s, it was anyone’s guess as to whether something like this was going to get treated with respect or see Cash as a complete joke.
Still, Rubin saw a spark in Cash that gave faint echoes of that ‘Man in Black’ persona, saying, “I’d been thinking about who was really great but not making really great records. And Johnny was the first and the greatest that came to mind. A unique character, kind of his own force of nature. [He’s] someone without peer, still capable of good work.”
And despite Cash’s voice being a bit more gravelly than usual, American Recordings was one of the biggest reminders of who the country scene was dealing with. He still had that same stoic demeanour he had back in the day, but it had transformed from being slightly charming to a gothic American outlaw, especially when he started picking up on macabre tunes like ‘Delia’s Gone’.
Rubin may have only had a little bit of time to work with Cash up until his death in 2003, but what he did for his legacy can’t be put into words. There wasn’t anyone in country music who could do what Cash had done, but the allure and mystery behind his later tunes was the kind of badass stoicism that has only been matched by someone like Bob Dylan.
