Cash Comes Around This Fall
Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin are doing the final mixes on Cash’s next
album, American IV: When the Man Comes Around, their
fourth recording together. Cash has recorded twenty-six songs for
the album, which will be whittled down to nearly half by its
release, tentatively set for September.
The album will be Cash’s first since the Grammy-winning
American III: Solitary Man. His work with Rubin dates back
to his 1994 comeback album, American Recordings, on which
a solo Cash recorded a handful of his own songs, along with covers
of tracks by Tom Waits, Nick Lowe and Glenn Danzig. Cash and Rubin
have been taking on songs by an eclectic group of writers since.
Beck’s “Rowboat” and Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents” were placed
alongside more traditional songs by the likes of the Louvin
Brothers on 1996’s Unchained. And Neil Diamond provided
the title track to Cash’s last record, which also included his take
on songs by Nick Cave (“The Mercy Seat”), U2 (“One”) and Will
Oldham (“I See a Darkness”).
Cash collaborator Marty Stuart told Rolling Stone that
the title track of the new collection is “the most strangely
marvelous, wonderful, gothic, mysterious, Christian thing that only
God and Johnny Cash could create together.” In addition to that
track Stuart also played on a cover of Sting’s “I Hung My Head,”
which is among the other songs being considered for inclusion.”
Takes on the Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” Marty Robbins’ “Big Iron” and
Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” have also
been recorded for American IV. “There’s something for
everyone on this one,” says Cash’s manager Lou Robbin.
This year, Cash’s seventieth, has been a busy one. In March,
Columbia/Legacy began a reissue program of some classic Cash
recordings: The Fabulous Johnny Cash (1958), Hymns by
Johnny Cash (1959), Ride This Train (1960),
Orange Blossom Special (1965) and Carryin’ On
(1967). Legacy will continue to roll out the reissues later this
year with four albums repackaged with bonus tracks and new liner
notes: Songs of Our Soil (1959), Sings Ballads of the
True West (1965), The Johnny Cash Show (1970) and
Silver (1979). The four albums are due on September 3rd
along with Live at Madison Square Garden, a previously
unreleased concert from New York City in 1969. Carl Perkins joined
longtime Cash bassist Marshall Grant and drummer W.S. Holland for
the set.
In April, Cash was honored with the National Medal of the Arts
in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. He will also be the subject of a
pair of tribute albums. The first, due this summer, features Cash
compositions recorded by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Little
Richard, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle and others. “‘I
Walk the Line,’ ‘Folsom Prison,’ they were all cut right the first
time,” project organizer/producer Stuart said. “The only reason I
can think of for this project is that those of us who know him and
love him, we just bring our best to his feet and honor him. It’s a
record of honor.”
The second tribute, Dressed in Black, is scheduled for
a September 10th release, with Hank Williams III, Rodney Crowell,
the Mavericks’ Raul Malo, the Rev. Horton Heat, Mandy Barnett,
Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison, and Robbie Fulks among the
contributors.