Johnny Cash
Unearthed

THE REVIEW

There is this man; he is advanced in age and the years gone by now force him to spend much of his day in a wheelchair; for him, who as a child savored the ultimate pleasure of wandering barefoot and feeling the earth, that chair is more tormenting than a cell.

This man, suddenly, meets another, it doesn't matter how or when; he is half his age, could be his son.

But the two couldn't be more different, so they are not bound by blood, if one were to believe the saying "Like father, like son".

According to another saying, however, opposites attract, and between the two the attraction is strong and mutual from the beginning.

What attracts them to each other, it's impossible to know; maybe it's that Johnny one day goes to visit Rick and finds him huddled on the couch, clinging to his dog, barefoot. Just as he liked to do, before time confined him to a wheelchair.

Johnny was once famous, the brightest star in the starry sky of country, after Hank; now no one wants to listen to his music or give him a chance. It's the grunge years, the future is at the doors of Kurt Cobain and his followers; there's no space, no time for the old Johnny.

Rick allows himself that space and time; he is the one who seeks out Johnny and encourages him to get back into circulation.

The times have changed, it's true, and it takes powerful strokes not to sink like a rock, but Johnny is a man and he faces the crossing with such vigor that it makes Mao pale. Johnny and Rick spend ten years side by side and together write the most beautiful note story of the end of the century.

The event is to be celebrated: Rick proposes to Johnny to share with the world many of those moments that, until then, only they and a few other guests had the fortune to share. It's hard work, because ten years are still ten years, but the work is meticulous and in the end, everything is ready for the event.

Unfortunately, the party doesn't go too well.

It happens that Johnny's wife, June, dies; and that of Johnny and June is one of those stories where you just can't go on without your lifelong companion, without your life; thus, the ending is written and Johnny fades away a few days after his beloved.

The party is no longer so, but the event takes place anyway.

Ten years of life condensed in a box set as black as pitch: on the front, a thin white band frames a few black and white photos of Johnny; on the back, a miniature, inverted US flag, centered.

In that box set, a book of scattered thoughts from Johnny and Rick and from those who lived, even if just passing by, those occasions. Few photographs, always in black and white, some tug at the heart.

In that box set, five compact discs. On those discs, Johnny's voice tells of life, love, and death, his and June's, which is then Rick's, which is then everyone's, in the end.

An absolute work of art, akin to the complete works of Fedor Dostoevsky.

Like every work of art, this too has a title: "Unearthed" which, literally, means "dissotterrato". Johnny's death ultimately changes its meaning forever.