CD REVIEW
Johnny Cash
"Unearthed" 5-disc box set
(Lost Highway)

Entertainment
Art

By MATTHEW SIEFERT

Prior to his death in September of 2003, country legend Johnny Cash spent the last years of his life recording sessions with Rick Rubin. Four albums later, at the end of a remarkable life and music career, the Man in Black leaves us all with an abundance of unreleased songs to remember him by.

"Unearthed" as a whole consists of four discs of previously unreleased songs and a fifth disc containing the best of Cash's previous American Recordings over the last ten years. "Who's Gonna Cry," the set's first disc, is an all-acoustic album featuring songs formerly performed by Cash ("Long Black Veil," "Flesh and Blood," and "Down There By the Train") as well as other unused recordings ("No Earthly Good" and "Just the Other Side of Nowhere"). "Who's Gonna Cry" has its strong moments, keeping in the vein of Cash’s familiar storytelling songs of old.

On the next disc, "Trouble in Mind," Cash is joined by backing bands the Heartbreakers (and Tom Petty), the Red Devils, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. For fans of Johnny Cash, this is about as experimental as it gets. The album covers ground from rockabilly (Roy Orbison's "Down The Line") to traditional country (Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On" and Dolly Parton's "I'm A Drifter") all the way back to straight up rock 'n' roll (Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man"). Yet the two songs that seem to come to life most are renditions of Neil Young classics "Pocahontas" and "Heart of Gold." The Heartbreakers’ (the most used backing band on the album) arrangements provide glorious sounds surrounding Cash's authoritative voice on "Pocahontas." On "Heart of Gold," Chili Peppers’ guitarist John Frusciante picks the song's lead to perfection. Not all of the experimentations panned out as well though. "T For Texas" falls terribly short of Rubin's aim.

"Redemption Songs," the third disc, follows with an array of songs coming from diverse musical backgrounds. The epic title track, Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," a duet with Joe Strummer (with backing guitar by Tom Morello) delivers on a level one would expect: memorable. Other high points include upbeat numbers like the banjo-laden "Chattanooga Sugar Babe" and the verse-swapping duet with Nick Cave, "Cindy".

The fourth and final disc of previously unreleased material, "My Mother's Hymn Book," is acoustic album. The disc is comprised of gospel songs from an old ragged hymnal that his mother sang to him as a child. Such hymns as "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder," "In the Garden," and album's closer "Just as I Am" punctuate beautiful cadences with Cash's trademark voice. These final takes prove very poignant and equally meaningful.

It is particularly misleading, and a bit insulting, to identify these 64 previously unheard tracks as "outtakes." True, many of the songs are experimental, but a number of them worked. That said, it seems at this point in time, any tracks that end up hitting the cutting room floor in Rick Rubin's recording studio may be worthy for release.

Perhaps the most practical criticism of Unearthed – aside from the fact that most of the material was written by other artists – is that many of the songs that Cash did not write fail to connect with Cash on a personal level. In the case of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" on "The Man Comes Around," Cash made the song both widely accessible to a wide range of audiences and personally relevant (with the help of Mark Romanek's stirring video direction). Some of the songs, particularly on the first three discs, simply don't capture that same genuineness.

This, however, shouldn't discredit the songs themselves. Cash has been notorious for being one of music's great narrators and one of the best storytellers in recent music history.

For those who followed the American Recordings over the years, the set will be a great extension of the previous work and give insight into the last musical moments of Cash's life. After which the realization should become quite evident that Johnny Cash's legacy has yet to end, even after 71 years.