Few artists get a second chance, but Johnny Cash was one of them. His reinvention in the 1990s, in tandem with producer Rick Rubin, yielded some of the best music of an already illustrious career, albeit one that had seen him walk alone throughout much of the preceding two decades.
The ‘American’ series, which now runs to six albums following the posthumous releases of 'A Hundred Highways' and ‘Ain’t No Grave’, stands as one of the great bodies of work in recent times and casts one hell of a shadow, from which ‘Out Among The Stars’ seeks to step.
Recorded in the mid ‘80s with Billy Sherrill, who was also behind the desk for Cash’s 1981 album ‘The Baron’, these sessions were, until recently, consigned to the vaults, having been dismissed by an apathetic Columbia Records 30 years ago amid the pop-country boom.
Cash’s son, John Carter Cash , recruited several musicians, including Marty Stuart, a veteran of the original recordings, to add meat to the bones of these arrangements after stumbling across them, and the result is a well-rounded, faithful take on songs that found an iconic figure stuck between stations.
The weight and gravitas of Cash’s voice is apparent from the first line of the excellent title track, which mines a familiar, conversational storytelling style and comes off as somewhat prescient. He sings: “It’s midnight at a liquor store in Texas, closing time and now the day is done. When a boy walks in the door and points a pistol, he can’t find a job, but Lord, he’s found a gun.”
Baby Ride Easy is a rollicking, foot-stomping tune and the pick of two duets with his wife, June Carter, while She Used Love Me A Lot possesses all the hurt and pathos of Cash’s later albums.
Also evident are the creative missteps born of his uneasy union with Sherrill, notably the fluffy If I Told You Who It Was, which bounces through references to the Grand OleOpry and some cringe-worthy innuendos. Equally, ballads like Tennessee and After All are clean cut, too sweet to satisfy.
Rubin recently described Cash’s enduring fame and popularity as being an offshoot from “the general recognition of the great loss of an American icon”. That’s certainly what Cash remains, but one whose faults are out there for all to see, as they have been for a long time. ‘Out Among The Stars’ is the product of a difficult time in an artist’s life and it shows. Cash’s star burned too bright to be extinguished, but that doesn’t mean that the light didn’t dim from time to time.
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