• Track Listing

One of the most storied comebacks in modern American music occurred when Rick Rubin and his American Recordings label teamed with Johnny on a series of albums starting in ’94. They started out as stark as could be: just Johnny’s voice and acoustic guitar. Then, still splitting their space between inspired covers and new Cash originals, the albums sonically grew, with backing by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and guests including June Carter Cash, Sheryl Crow, Merle Haggard, Will Oldham, Randy Scruggs, Marty Stuart, Fiona Apple, Nick Cave, Don Henley, Billy Preston and Mac Wiseman. As Johnny reached the end of his road with the last of these albums, the songs and performances took a deeply spiritual turn; these are transfixing to behold—especially in sequence, as they are here. As for the listening experience itself, this box holds seven audiophile 180-gram vinyl LPs, the cutting and pressing of which were supervised by Rubin. This is the first box with American Recordings, Unchained, Solitary Man, The Man Comes Around, A Hundred Highways and Ain’t No Grave. Those six albums include Johnny’s soul-stirring versions of Delia’s Gone; The Beast in Me; Bird on a Wire; Rusty Cage; Unchained; I’ve Been Everywhere; Solitary Man; One; I See a Darkness; I Won’t Back Down; The Mercy Seat; The Man Comes Around; Hurt; Personal Jesus; Help Me; Like the 309; Ain’t No Grave; For the Good Times…hours of crucial late-career Cash on heavyweight vinyl! American.