It began with a typical listener request. Hannes Winkelmann, who streams The Current's roots-music service, Radio Heartland, from his home in Clenze, Germany, emailed the station: "Johnny Cash did some great German recordings, 'Viel Zu Spät' and 'Wo Ist Zu Hause, Mama'."

Radio Heartland's Mike Pengra did an internet search and discovered Johnny Cash had indeed recorded some songs in German. "Who knew?" Pengra muses.

Not a lot of people, as it happens. Cash's German-language songs were released in Germany and to some extent in the United States, but are not very well known on this side of the Atlantic. Two of the tracks appear on an album, The Unissued Johnny Cash, released in 1978 on the Germany-based label, Bear Family Records.

"Bear Family is the single most prolific label out of Germany that put out recordings of American artists," says Val Camilletti, owner of Val's Halla Records in Oak Park, Ill., just outside Chicago. "They are renowned for their box sets of recordings by Buddy Holly, Chet Atkins, the Everly Brothers and so many others, especially in the world of rockabilly. The label is extremely important. It's a goldmine of American artists."

According to liner notes that appear on The Unissued Johnny Cash (transcribed to the web by a fan), Cash recorded the German-language songs in the late 1950s after he had moved from Sun Records to CBS Records, and the latter label noticed that Cash's song, "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," proved a big hit in Germany. At the label's request, in 1959, Cash recorded a handful of tracks in German, including "I Got Stripes," translated as "Viel Zu Spät."

According to listener Winkelmann, whom we contacted by phone after receiving his email, the German translation of "I Got Stripes" isn't literal. "It means 'It's Too Late'," Winkelmann explains. "He regrets what he has done because he shot someone and is looking back on it."

Winkelmann says he discovered the music of Johnny Cash just a couple of years ago, hearing Cash's original songs in English, then discovering the German versions just six months later. He enjoys listening to Johnny Cash on vinyl, but he doesn't own any German-language pressings. "I found the German songs on YouTube," Winkelmann laughs.

The Current's Bill DeVille is a lifelong Johnny Cash fan, but he hadn't heard the German-language tracks before this week. "I have to admit, I didn't know a thing about it," DeVille says. "It was interesting. One of the things I noticed is that — I don't know if 'harsh' or 'guttural' are proper words when talking about German — but Johnny Cash makes German sound a bit more musical, and it sounds perfectly natural coming out of his mouth."

DeVille notes that in the song, "Besser So, Jenny-Joe," the addition of accordion gives the song a more German feel. "And some words they didn't try to translate," DeVille adds. "For example, the word 'cowboys' showed up; I got a kick out of that."

In "Viel Zu Spät" ("I Got Stripes"), DeVille picked out the word "sheriff" — but that wasn't the only thing that didn't quite translate for him in that song. "The one thing I can comment about that is that the song totally lost the intensity of the version that I know, which is the At Folsom Prison rendition, where you can feel the passion and the power of him being in the prison," DeVille notes. "So it takes on kind of a whole new meaning when the language is changed to German on that one."

Despite that shortcoming, DeVille says these German-language songs further reinforce Johnny Cash's widespread appeal. "Johnny Cash crosses all barriers," he says. "I mean, kids love Johnny Cash, older people love Johnny Cash, and I guess it crosses all nations and nationalities as well. And that was kind of a refreshing thing about it."

In addition to his German songs, Cash also re-recorded a couple of his tunes in Spanish, such as "Ring of Fire."

"It goes to show you how powerful Cash's words are," DeVille adds. "He's the voice of God, singing to the people — he knows how to get to the heart of the matter no matter what language he's singing in."

Resources

Johnny Cash - official site

Bear Family Records (in German)

Val's Halla Records