New Johnny Cash Album Of Unearthed Songs To Be Released In June
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Written by Jon Stickler
Photo: Alan Messer
A posthumous Johnny Cash album will be released this summer.
'Songwriter' will arrive through Mercury Nashville/UMe on June 28, and features 11 songs written over many years, recorded as demos in early 1993 in Nashville, during a time when the country music icon was between contracts.
Not long after, the songs were shelved when Cash met producer Rick Rubin, with the pair going on to create the now legendary 'American Recordings' series of albums.
Some thirty years later, the songs have been unearthed by John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash, who also co-produced the album with David Ferguson. Isolating Cash's original vocals and recruiting the musicians with whom Cash played with—guitarist Marty Stuart, late bassist Dave Roe, and drummer Pete Abbott, among others—an album of previously unreleased material has come to fruition. Carter Cash said of the approach:
"We just went rudimentary. We went straight to the roots, as far as the sound, and tried not to overly enhance it. We built as if dad was in the room. That's what we tried to do. Between the both of us, Fergie and I have spent thousands of hours with dad in the recording studio, so we just tried to act like he was there: WWJCD, right?"
"Nobody plays Cash better than Marty Stuart, and Dave Roe of course played with dad for many years," he continued. "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."
Ferguson added: "I think this record is the way I would have liked to have made one if I would have ever been in charge of one, before Rick Rubin or after Jack Clement. I’ve known John Carter since he was a boy, so it was great to finally work with him. He gave me a lot of leeway, especially in terms of grooves and things. We went right along the same page. There wasn’t ever a conversation or plan about an end product, it was just let's do the best we can do."
Head below to hear the lead single, Well Alright, which offers the Man in Black's signature steady, rhythmic guitar strumming, while pulling influence from his hits of the '50s, such as Get Rhythm, Five Feet High and Rising, Cry! Cry! Cry! and Big River.
Other collaborators on 'Songwriter' include The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Vince Gill, Waylon Jennings, Ana Cristina Cash, Matt Combs, Mike Rojas, Russ Pahl, Sam Bacco, Kerry Marx, and Harry Stinson.
'Songwriter' tracklist:
1. Hello Out There
2. Spotlight
3. Drive On
4. I Love You Tonite
5. Have You Ever Been to Little Rock?
6. Well Alright
7. She Sang Sweet Baby James
8. Poor Valley Girl
9. Soldier Boy
10.Sing It Pretty Sue
11. Like A Soldier
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