New, Unreleased Johnny Cash Material Due

American V: A Hundred Highways, culled from sessions Cash was in the process of recording with producer Rick Rubin before his death in 2003, will be released on July 4 through American Recordings on Lost Highway Records. While this release has the distinction of being the last album of new material Cash ever produced, the upcoming May 23 Columbia/Legacy release Personal File, also shares the pedigree of unreleased original material.

Selected from various sessions recorded between 1973 and 1982 at his House of Cash studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Personal File contains stripped-down, solo acoustic recordings that foreshadowed the raw tone of his later Rick Rubin recordings. The material is intimate and sketch-like, with Cash switching between covers, gospel spirituals, and originals. The recordings were never issued by Cash, remaining untouched inside his archives until his passing.

After his death, Cash's son John Carter Cash asked Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of A&R; at Sony BMG's reissue imprint, Legacy Recordings, and producer Gregg Geller to assist in cataloging the tape archives at the House of Cash. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Geller stated, "Periodically, I would come across a white tape box with the House of Cash label on it that said 'Johnny Cash, Personal File.' My sense is he had a concept album in mind, and these tapes were the beginning of that process." A steady stream of material from the House of Cash archives is expected to follow on Sony, with Personal File being the first trickle.

Personal File:

Disc One:

01 The Letter Edged in Black
02 There's a Mother Always Waiting at Home
03 The Engineer's Dying Child
04 My Mother Was a Lady
05 The Winding Stream
06 Far Away Places
07 Galway Bay
08 When I Stop Dreaming
09 Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes
10 I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen
11 Missouri Waltz
12 Louisiana Man
13 Paradise
14 I Don't Believe You Wanted to Leave
15 Jim, I Wore a Tie Today
16 Saginaw, Michigan
17 When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)
18 Girl in Saskatoon
19 The Cremation of Sam McGee
20 Tiger Whitehead
21 It's All Over
22 A Fast Song
23 Virgie
24 I Wanted So
25 It Takes One to Know Me

Disc Two:

01 Seal It in My Heart and Mind
02 Wildwood in the Pines
03 Who at My Door Is Standing
04 Have Thine Own Way Lord
05 Lights of Magdala
06 If Jesus Ever Loved a Woman
07 The Lily of the Valley
08 Have a Drink of Water
09 The Way Worn Traveler
10 Look Unto the East
11 Matthew 24 (Is Knocking at the Door)
12 The House Is Falling Down
13 One of These Days I'm Gonna Sit Down and Talk to Paul
14 What on Earth (Will You Do for Heaven's Sake)
15 My Children Walk in the Truth
16 No Earthly Good
17 Sanctified
18 Lord, Lord, Lord
19 What Is Man
20 Over the Next Hill (We'll Be Home)
21 A Half a Mile a Day
22 Farther Along
23 Life's Railway to Heaven
24 In the Sweet Bye and Bye

American V: A Hundred Highways was begun immediately after the completion of the sessions for 2002's American IV: The Man Comes Around. Cash suspected his physical condition would continue to deteriorate, so arrangements were made to have engineers and musicians "on-call" so that recording could take place whenever his health permitted. "He always wanted to work," Rubin stated in a press release. "Every morning when he'd wake up, he would call the engineer and tell him if he was physically up to working that day."

"Johnny said that recording was his main reason for being alive, and I think it was the only thing that kept him going, the only thing he had to look forward to."

American V: A Hundred Highways features the same musicians who worked on the previous American recordings, including Cash's long-time engineer David "Fergie" Ferguson, Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, and guitarist Smokey Hormel. Matt Sweeney (Superwolf, Chavez, Guided by Voices, Zwan) and Jonny Polonsky also contribute.

The album includes two new Cash originals, "I Came to Believe", and "Like the 309", the last song Cash ever wrote. It also features the traditional spiritual "God's Gonna Cut You Down", covers of Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)", Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind", Hank Williams' "On the Evening Train", and Rod McKuen's "Love's Been Good to Me".

"These songs are Johnny's final statement," Rubin said. "They are the truest reflection of the music that was central to his life at the time. This is the music that Johnny wanted us to hear."

Johnny Cash: http://www.johnnycash.com/