Johnny Cash & The Clash’s Joe Strummer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” (2002)

In 1958, Mer­le Hag­gard saw John­ny Cash play in San Quentin, and went on to sing hon­est coun­try songs for coun­try out­laws. In 1982, future Rage Against the Machine gui­tarist Tom Morel­lo saw Joe Strum­mer play with The Clash in Chica­go and went on to play angry right­eous rock for angry punks. Both Cash and Strum­mer, who died less than a year apart, were musi­cal prophets in their way, inspir­ing oth­ers to pick up their mes­sage and car­ry it to the com­mon fan. The same, of course, could be said of Bob Mar­ley. And though those three would like­ly have dif­fer­ent def­i­n­i­tions of the word “redemp­tion,” they shared a belief in music as a force for good.

Just above, hear Cash and Strum­mer sing Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song,” with Morel­lo on gui­tar. Record­ed dur­ing the ses­sions for Cash’s last album, the Rick Rubin-pro­duced Amer­i­can IV: The Man Comes Around, the duet hap­pened more or less by chance.

Says Rubin, “Joe was com­ing every day, because he loved John­ny Cash, and he just hap­pened to be in L.A. on vaca­tion. And he actu­al­ly extend­ed his trip a week longer just to come every day and be around John­ny.” Rubin also record­ed a solo take of Strum­mer singing “Redemp­tion Song” (below), which appeared on Strum­mer’s final album, the posthu­mous­ly released Street­core.


“Orig­i­nal­ly, the song was sup­posed to be a duet, and we record­ed it as a duet,” Rubin con­tin­ues, “But, just in case, both John­ny and Joe sang the whole song sev­er­al times” on their own. The duet ver­sion appears on the third disc, titled Redemp­tion Songs, of the released Cash box set Unearthed, which fea­tures out­takes and alter­nates from the Rubin-pro­duced Amer­i­can Record­ings series of Cash cov­er songs. Seems fit­ting some­how that one of the last songs both Strum­mer and Cash would record would be this one, and that they would sing it togeth­er. As one site suc­cinct­ly put it, the record­ing rep­re­sents “the first true punk rock star and the last. Togeth­er for­ev­er.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Marley’s Redemp­tion Song Final­ly Gets an Offi­cial Video: Watch the Ani­mat­ed Video Made Up of 2747 Draw­ings

Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song” Played by Musi­cians Around the World

Did Joe Strum­mer, Front­man of The Clash, Run the Paris and Lon­don Marathons?

“Joe Strummer’s Lon­don Call­ing”: All 8 Episodes of Strummer’s UK Radio Show Free Online

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.