Johnny Cash songs have been rediscovered and put on a new album by his son John Carter Cash.
The record titled Songwriter was originally recorded by country singer Cash in 1993, a decade before his death aged 71, at LSI Studios in Nashville.
The recording company was owned by his family members, and it is thought he had wanted to help them financially as well as record the songs.
Following a dip in record sales, Cash met the rock-rap producer Rick Rubin and he shelved the tracks.
The duo went on to record four critically and commercially well-received albums, beginning with 1994 Grammy-winning American Recordings, that found him a new, younger audience and led to the release of Cash covering the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt in 2002.
More than 30 years later, the son of Cash and his wife June Carter Cash has stripped back the songs to his father’s vocals and acoustic guitar, which he announced on Tuesday.
“I wanted it to be songs that mostly people hadn’t heard and that paid close attention to who he was as a songwriter and who he was as an American voice,” said John.
“One of my most important focuses in the past 10 years is to make sure that history, as best that I can possibly, is to give history the opportunity to notice him as the great writer he is. Bob Dylan says he’s one of the greatest writers of all of American written music and I agree.
“I want to put that in the forefront. His writing voice specifically is a certain voice, that I think if America wants to know their history, that’s a good place to look. Johnny Cash is definitely one true voice that we can listen to, specifically to his writings.”
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He also worked with co-producer David “Fergie” Ferguson, known for his recording engineer efforts with Rubin and Cash, to assemble a group of musicians that had worked with Cash to contribute.
“I would think Johnny would say what he said about every record that I worked on with him, every record I think he ever made, when he got to the end of it, he always said, ‘I think it’s the best record I’ve ever made’,” said Ferguson.
“You could count on that. I could just hear him say that. I think he’d be really proud of it.”
Guitarist Marty Stuart, the late bassist Dave Roe, along with drummer Pete Abbott and several others, all contributed at the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
“Nobody plays Cash better than Marty Stuart, and Dave Roe of course played with dad for many years,” said John.
“The musicians that came in were just tracking with dad, you know, recording with dad, just as, in the case of Marty and Dave, they had many times before, so they knew his energies, his movements, and they let him be the guide.
“It was just playing with Johnny once again, and that’s what it was. That was the energy of the creation.”
The 11-track collection has released the first single, the upbeat Well Alright.
It also contains the songs I Love You Tonite, a love letter to his wife June, Drive On is about Cash’s jaw pain and Like A Soldier, which deals with struggle with addiction before recovery.
Cash died of respiratory failure caused by complications from diabetes in 2003 and was known for the songs Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk The Line and A Boy Called Sue.
He was played by Joaquin Phoenix in the film Walk The Line, which earned Phoenix an Oscar nod and Reese Witherspoon an Academy Award for playing June.
Songwriter will be released on June 28th.
By Charlotte McLaughlin, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
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