Meet the Croatian Johnny Cash

It all started with this guy I met on the internet… Yes, it reads like a cautionary tale, but bear with me.

It was years ago, when music fans still traded hard-to-find recordings of their favorite musicians and/or bands by (gasp) mailing compact discs to each other. The internet hadn’t yet been perfected, but even then, it was a great way for like-minded people to meet.



Over the years we’ve kept in touch, and in that time he took his love of Johnny Cash to the next logical step and picked up a guitar and started playing his songs.

But unlike most of the homages on YouTube, he doesn’t try to “add-to” or update or interpret Cash’s work. Or imitate him, thank God. His singing, like his playing, is organic and has no ego. He just strums the chords and sings the words, like Cash did. Maybe a little bit of finger-picking on the bridge if it doesn’t intrude. Plus, he covers the songs that move him, not the songs calculated to gather the most YouTube “hits.” Check out his version of this Cash song you’ve never heard of:



By the way, that’s an autoharp he’s playing. It’s like a stringed accordion; you have to be able to do ten things at once to make it go. And still be able to sing.

My God, even his self-shot, sepia clips are as stark and Spartan as a great Cash vocal performance. They could have been shot by Matthew Brady 150 years ago if Brady made music videos instead of battlefield corpsescapes.

You should check out my friend’s YouTube home page. He also does Townes Van Zandt and Stephen Foster! If I could be anybody in Croatia, I’d be this guy.

PS: Happy birthday, Johnny, wherever you are. Tell Elvis I said, “Hey,” won’t you?