Cashing in

I have been a country music fan for a long time. Yep, I was country when country wasn’t cool.

Growing up, I used to want to jump out the window of the car when I was riding with my dad and he would tune in to his favorite country radio station. I just wasn’t in to twang. I despised it.

In college, though, I started listening to a lot of crossover. By the time I graduated, my record collection was full of country music. I was hooked for life.

In fact, when I started dating Delinda in 1981, country music was among the common ground that brought us together. We have been married for 24 years.

What have I been listening to lately? Well, I’ve been riding around town with “American V: A Hundred Highways’’ in the CD player. It’s a collection of Johnny Cash recordings that have been released three years after his death in 2003.

It’s terrific. I think it’s also pretty neat that my 19-year-old son, Grant, is the one who gave me the CD. He told me it was the best anthology of songs released posthumously he had ever heard. Grant and others in his generation have come to realize the Man in Black’s range of influence on the music they now listen to and love.

The vocals were recorded a few months before Cash died in September 2003. Everything else was added two years later.

It’s very powerful and reflective. It’s spiritual and it’s sad. When Cash died three years ago, I was amazed at the variety of musicians who eulogized the man. He was truly among the giants of the past century.

These songs also come at a time in my life when the words and music – no matter how simple – are deep and meaningful.