In the great American saga of Johnny Cash, the early 90s are held to be among his lowest ebbs: the lull that made the triumphant final act of his career – the American Recordings series with Rick Rubin, critical acclaim, Grammy awards, platinum sales and all – seem all the more startling. He’d been dropped by Columbia Records after 28 years and a brief and turbulent period with Mercury had yielded mixed artistic dividends and indifferent sales. One of country music’s Mount Rushmore figures was reduced to recording Christmas songs for a now defunct budget label called Laserlight Digital.
You might consider it an era in Cash’s artistic life best forgotten, but posthumous retrospection has a way of recalibrating history: just as David Bowie’s 1990s output has been significantly upgraded since his death, so a collection of Johnny Cash songwriting demos that no label wanted in 1993 emerges 31 years later, heralded as a major new release.
