Johnny Cash on American Recordings

This is new stuff.  It's all stuff he recorded at American, but didn't get included on any of the albums he released.  For each of the six albums, with fifteen or so songs on each album, they recorded hundreds of songs.  Some covers, some original, some covers of his own materials. 

I read Johnny Cash's autobiography a year or so ago.  In it, he was saying that Rick Rubin re-energized his life and his music.  He had been doing the same show at the same theater in Branson and was simply sick of it.  He had quit and gone back on the road, even though he was having trouble filling high school auditoriums he loved being on the road.  So when Rick Rubin said he wanted to record him, he wasn't so sure.  Rick Rubin had never done a country artist and all the music was heavily engineered in studios.  Johnny Cash asked him what he wanted to do and the answer was, "Whatever you want to do, however you want to do it."  It's so stripped down and bare that for much of it you can practically see the flickering flames and smell the smoke of a campfire as you listen.  They just recorded, and recorded, and recorded, and recorded, and recorded.  Then they figured out what to put on the albums.  So there's just tons of stuff unreleased.  Some of it probably ought to stay that way, but from what I've heard of the cuts from Unearthed, a lot of it needs to get released too. 

It's kind of like Willie Nelson.  I read an article on him.  His bar has a recording studio attached to the stage.  Apparently folks come by the bar.  Willie and them get to talking and decide to try something and it gets recorded.  They've got something like 80 albums worth of material in the can. 

- Zurf