Johnny Cash & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is part of a long line of albums featuring the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra overdubbing their sumptuous strings upon original recordings by iconic stars of the rock & roll era. They kicked things off with their release of
Elvis Presley's
If I Can Dream in 2015, then released their take on music by
Roy Orbison and
Aretha Franklin in 2017, and they tackled
Cash in 2020. One of the great unspoken elements of
Cash's career is that he did have a keen sense of showmanship -- he hosted a televised variety show, after all -- but it's hard to say if he'd ever be involved with a project as mawkish as this. Perhaps it's the inherent gravity of
Cash's baritone, perhaps it's the fact that these songs are rooted in country and folk, not pop, but the orchestrations on
Johnny Cash & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra feel awkward and saccharine in a way that, say,
Elvis Presley's similar albums don't. Producers
Don Reedman and
Nick Patrick are skilled enough to make some of the strings seem smooth -- this is especially true of the deep cuts and obscurities peppered throughout the record -- but one listen to the duet with
Bob Dylan on "Girl from the North Country" puts the album's problems in sharp relief. The original is casual and charming, flowing to a beat that's slightly eccentric -- eccentric enough to make it slightly difficult to straighten out for the purposes of the straitlaced
Royal Philharmonic. Everything here feels like it's been run through a click track; elements of the original remain, but the sound is too stiff, particularly for a singer who came to fame with the loping
Tennessee Two. Plus,
Cash's booming voice just doesn't sound right in such a syrupy setting (nor does
Dylan's, nor do those of
the Highwaymen), a record where the arrangements are overbearing. It's not a country record, it's not a pop album; it's designed as a throwback to the easy listening LPs of the early '70s. In other words, it's a
Johnny Cash album for people who don't like
Johnny Cash's music. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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