Is it too early to call an album of the year?
The Johnny Cash estate just announced that a brand new album from The Man in Black is on the way this summer, titled Songwriter. It’s a collection of songs solely written by Cash, which were recorded in 1993 but never released.
On July 15th, 1986, Cash’s label home of 26 years Columbia Records, where he essentially became the legend we know and love today, dropped him. From there, he signed with Mercury, where he stayed from ’86 until 1991 when they parted ways, too.
And for a couple years in the early 90’s, Cash was actually without a label at all. He ultimately signed to Rick Rubin’s label American, but during those couple years where he was an independent artist, Cash recorded quite a few demos of his own of songs he wrote completely by himself at Nashville’s LSI Studios.
But when he signed with Rubin, those tunes got pushed to the side, and never saw the light of day. Cash’s son John Carter Cash recently rediscovered the stripped-back tapes, which were essentially just Cash singing with an acoustic guitar, and wanted to finish them and get them out to fans.
The album trailer explains it all quite well:
“In the early 90’s, Johnny Cash recorded an album of songwriting demos. 30 years later, the songs were taken to the Cash cabin, a hallowed place for Johnny, and stripped back to his vocals and guitar.
A hand-picked group of musicians came in and breathed new life into the tracks, taking the sound back tot he roots and the heart of the songs. This is Johnny Cash, one of the greatest writers of all-time, and this is ‘Songwriter.'”
John Carter Cash co-produced the finished album with Cash’s longtime engineer David “Fergie” Ferguson. And according to Pitchfork, some of the recordings feature Cash’s longtime friend and fellow country legend Waylon Jennings, which is incredible and I cannot wait to hear.
In addition, “Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, Vince Gill, Ana Cristina Cash, Matt Combs, Mike Rojas, Russ Pahl, Sam Bacco, Kerry Marx, and Harry Stinson” are also featured.
The album consists of 11 song in total, and is due out everywhere on June 28th:
The lead single “Well Alright” was also released today, which is a cheeky, funny tune about a woman Johnny meets at the laundromat (or something like that).
It sounds like a hit to me, and while it’s a shame this album never got released while Cash was still alive, it’s pretty amazing that his son has put this together and we’re getting a new album from the icon in 2024.
Obviously, you need to check this out and add it to your playlist ASAP:
