A friend of mine played me a tune last night purporting to be Johnny Cash. The singer was singing something along the lines of “America for whites, Africa for blacks, ship them n*ggers back.” It sounded like it was recorded in the '50s and it indeed did sound a bit like Johnny Cash but his style isn’t the hardest to impersonate and it’s not impossible that other singers could have sounded like him. So what’s the story, did he really sing on this track or is it wrongly attributed to Mr. Cash?
I seem to recall a thread on this years and years ago. There was some other singer with a similar voice.
I am sure some Smart Person will be along shortly.
Wikipedia says the song is credited to a group called Odis Cochran and the Three Bigots. Some websites claim it’s George Rockwell himself singing.
I’ve listened to the song just now (no link, but you can find it yourself with a Google video search) and I must say that to my ears, it doesn’t sound much at all like Johnny Cash’s voice, nor does it sound like the kind of song he would have sung.
Here’s the thread Paul was talking about. The short answer seems to be that some fuckwit who calls himself “Johnny Rebel” sings racist songs. From there, all racist songs get attributed to Johnny Rebel, and from there, they get attributed to all country singers named Johnny, 'cause hey, all country singers are redneck racists, right? :rolleyes:
It was not Johny Cash’s type of song. He and the people he regularly sang with wouldn’t sing something like that.
During one part of his career, David Allen Coe sang extremely racist/sexist/vulgar songs.
A few were. But if I remember correctly a lot of racist songs that get credited to Coe were actually the works of Johnny Rebel.
Really, could the man who wrote and sang that piece o’ crap be the same man who wrote and sang “The Man in Black” or “Ragged Old Flag”?
Well, I am not claiming DAC wrote the songs, just that he performed them. Back in the ?80s, I met DAC. I had heard a few of his songs, but didn’t really know much about him. During a long night involving much alcohol, he seemed like an OK guy.
At the end of the night, he gave me a CD that he said contained songs “not available on any of my CDs”. I threw out the CD a short time later. It had songs like Nigger Fucker, Fuck Her In The Butt, etc. A few were kinda funny, like Cumstains on the Pillow.
Here is Wiki’s take:
It’s hard to think of any country singer less likely to sing a racist song than Johnny Cash:
His songs were very often about respect for the oppressed. He sang about respect for prisoners, for drug addicts, for the poor, and for Native Americans, just among few groups than quickly come to mind. He never did the smug “People like us are great, and those non-country types are so messed up” songs that some country singers do.
Coe had another song I believe called Alabama Nigger. I remember reading something like the drummer on the track was black. Hmmmm
Didn’t Coe also do The Rodeo Song? I thought that was mildly funny, but then it just has vulgarity - no racist stuff.
No. That was Garry Lee and Showdown. But you’re not the first to think this.
Per my previous post, Coe did do some vile songs, but quite a few that he didn’t do get credited to him.
I didn’t really think it was him I was just looking for evidence that it wasn’t. I had heard of Johnny Rebel and his stock in trade before and assumed it was him.
I heard a Coe bootleg years ago that had a very funny and very vulgar song about the three biggest lies in the world. Now I’m wondering if it was indeed Coe or not. Strangely, that thought never occurred to me until just now. I just took my friend’s word for it without questioning it at all.
This will only hurt for a little bit, I’ll only put the head of it in, and I promise never ever to come in your mouth?
Yup, that’s Coe. The dirty and racist songs are available on a special CD from his website if you do a Google search.
FWIW, Coe denied to Howard Stern a few years back that the Johnny Rebel songs were him.