New Johnny Cash album ‘Songwriter’ released posthumously by his son
On Friday, Johnny Cash’s posthumous album “Songwriter” released after more than 30 years in the making.
The “Hurt” and “Ring of Fire” singer died in September 2003 due to complications from diabetes, but his son, John Carter Cash, is keeping his music alive.
The 11-track record, released via Mercury Nashville/UMe, features a revamped version of Cash’s original 1993 recordings of shelved demos that his son revisited and reproduced.
Cash recorded the tracks at LSI Studios in Nashville as part of a demo session, and back in ’93, a young Carter Cash even played guitar on some of the songs at 23 years old.
When Carter Cash revisited the demos, he found his dad’s vocals pristine, but the production to be somewhat aged.
So he sat with co-producer David “Fergie” Ferguson and they stripped the vocals down to just Cash’s vocals and guitar (original vocals from Waylon Jennings are featured on two tracks, too).
They handpicked a group of musicians, many of which played with Cash, like guitarist Marty Stuart, the late bassist Dave Roe and drummer Pete Abbott to help with the reproduced instrumentals. Dan Auerbach, of The Black Keys, is featured on one of the new album’s songs, “Spotlight.”
For some of the process, the band even ventured to the Cash Cabin, a spot where Cash wrote music in Hendersonville.
John Carter Cash sat down with The Tennessean to talk about the emotional process of picking up his father’s shelved work 30 years later.
John Carter Cash produces late father’s album in emotional process
John Carter Cash has been working on “Songwriter” for the past five years, sitting alongside his late father’s vocals.
“I think he was just in a creative fervor. In February of ’93, he was in really good space,” John Carter Cash told The Tennessean about his father, Johnny Cash.
“He had been in a recovery center the year before ... he was sober, he was clear headed,” he said.
Carter Cash said the original demos of the record fell between the cracks. It went unreleased due to a couple of reasons— what the industry was looking for, the way the record sounded.
“But looking back after all these years, the one thing that made sense to start from was a foundation of just my father’s voice and his acoustic guitar where it would work,” Carter Cash said.
Carter Cash even stripped out the original guitar he played alongside his father. “I fired myself real fast,” he said jokingly.
All that was left was his father’s voice, some guitar and Waylon Jennings’ original vocals on two songs.
“The first thing we did was add Marty Stuart, who was my dad’s No. 1 call for guitar all through the last part of his life,” Carter Cash said.
The record also features bassist Dave Roe, Cash’s bass player in the ’90s from the Tennessee Three. While Roe played on the original tracks, he wasn’t yet the upright bass master he would later become.
“When Dave Roe started working for dad, he told my father that he could play upright and electric (bass). We got up on stage and he could barely play the upright,” Carter Cash said.
“And so dad went to Dave Roe and said, ‘You can’t play bass upright. Can you Roe?,’ he said, ‘No, sir. Sorry.’ And Dad said, ‘You got six months.’ ” Dave Roe died last year at his home in Goodlettsville at age 71.
But before he died, he was able to go back and re-record his bass tracks on “Songwriter,” showing his mastery of the upright.
“It was a connection with my father, it was inevitably that I had the chance to be in the studio with him again,” John Carter Cash said of the emotional process.
He was in every session with his father from ’98 to 2003, even up until the last thing he recorded, which was 10 days before his death.
“They’re all Johnny Cash songs. And so that makes it a very rare record,” Carter Cash said, adding that the new album is “quintessential handwritten Cash.”
But he isn’t blinded by his father’s stardom — Carter Cash is a two-time Grammy Award-winning producer and two-time nominee himself.
“I don’t necessarily think that I love everything Johnny Cash ever wrote,” Carter Cash said. “I love everything my dad ever wrote. But maybe not Johnny. So some of these songs, I like a lot more than others. But I do like them all,” he said.
When it comes to his favorites, he likes the “cleverly disguised gospel songs that can be played in a zombie movie ... that’s classic Johnny Cash.”
The one song from this record that really gets Carter Cash is “Hello Out There,” the first track on the album. On the track, Carter Cash’s wife, vocalist Ana Cristina Cash, opens the song with a high note.
The music video for “Hello Out There” also features Carter Cash’s daughter, Grace June Cash — something that Carter Cash said “grandma and grandpa” would’ve really liked.
“Every time I hear the bridge in ‘Hello Out There,’ I cry every time. ... It’s just so powerful to see his unique vision, his approach to musicianship, but it’s about the message, right? Powerful stuff.”
Carter Cash recently wrapped up working on another project with Norman Blake, “Pilgrimage to Rising Fawn.” The record comes out in August, featuring Carter Cash, Jamey Johnson, Jerry Douglas, Carlene Carter and more.
For more information on John Carter Cash, head to johncartercash.com.
To listen to Johnny Cash’s new album “Songwriter,” visit johnnycash.com.
Audrey Gibbs is a music reporter at The Tennessean. You can reach her at agibbs@tennessean.com.
