Johnny Cash: Songwriter – A fascinating footnote to a giant of popular music

In early 1993, at the age of 61, Johnny Cash was not in a good place. Though generally recognised as a giant of popular music, possessing one of the great signature voices, he had no record contract, his career was in steep decline and his behaviour – not least his intermittent drug abuse – was seriously testing his storied relationship with his wife, the singer June Carter. It seemed his time had come and gone, both personally and professionally.

During this fallow period he recorded an album’s worth of demos of new and old material, all self-written. They could have formed the basis for another album, but fate intervened in the shape of Rick Rubin, head of American Recordings, a label more familiar with rap and heavy metal. He believed there was life yet in the Man in Black and convinced him to change his approach.

Out went the band, the strings and the venerable country veneer. Rubin resurrected Cash’s career by stripping him back to voice and acoustic guitar, creating a mood of dark reflection personified by tracks such as Nick Lowe’s The Beast in Me and Trent Reznor’s Hurt. The American Recordings series of albums proved to be Cash’s last great musical stand before he died, in 2003. Johnny the entertainer became John the revelator.

Fast-forward to 2023 and the producer John Carter Cash, the couple’s only son, and the resolute keeper of their flame, decides to dust down those 1993 tapes, perhaps inspired by his 2023 book, Johnny Cash: The Life in Lyrics. He cleans up the original recordings, dispensing with all save his father’s renowned voice, and recruits a top-notch band familiar with his father’s style to re-create Songwriter.

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“Nobody plays Cash better than [the guitarist] Marty Stuart, and [the bassist] Dave Roe of course played with dad for many years,” Carter Cash said. “The musicians that came in were just tracking with dad, you know, recording with dad, just as, in the case of Marty and Dave, they had many times before, so they knew his energies, his movements, and they let him be the guide. It was just playing with Johnny once again.”

[ John Carter Cash on his parents: ‘Their relationship was a shambles. But they learned to love each other again’ ]

It is telling, however, that only two songs, Drive On and Like a Soldier, of the 11 on Songwriter survived Rubin’s selection process months later. This hybrid recording is more old-style in tone and content, with Stuart contributing emblematic twangy guitar. It also captures a Cash uneasy and unsure (such as on Spotlight) though still imbued with religion and patriotism, love for his wife and family, a touch of humour and empathy for the outsider (She Sang Sweet Baby James).

So is Songwriter the missing chapter in the Cash story? More a footnote, but fascinating nonetheless.