New Johnny Cash Album Features 11 Unreleased Recordings From 1993

John Carter Cash rediscovered the forgotten songs and brought them back to life on ‘Songwriter.’

In early 1993, Johnny Cash recorded an album’s worth of original songs that never saw the light of day.

Roughly thirty years later, John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash, rediscovered the forgotten songs, and along with co-producer David “Fergie” Ferguson, “stripped them back to just Johnny’s powerful, pristine vocals, and acoustic guitar.”

And, more than 20 years after Johnny’s death, Songwriter was born.

“We just went rudimentary,” John Carter explained in a news release. “We went straight to the roots, as far as the sound, and tried not to overly enhance it. We built as if dad was in the room. That's what we tried to do. Between the both of us, Fergie and I have spent thousands of hours with dad in the recording studio, so we just tried to act like he was there: WWJCD, right?”

The aptly titled Songwriter (available for pre-order here), features songs written solely by the one-and-only Johnny Cash. The 11-track collection showcases the breadth of his writing with songs of love, family, sorrow, beauty, spiritual salvation, survival and redemption, all sung in his unmistakable voice.

“I think this record is the way I would have liked to have made one if I would have ever been in charge of one, before Rick Rubin or after Jack Clement,” Fergie said in a statement. “I’ve known John Carter since he was a boy, so it was great to finally work with him. He gave me a lot of leeway, especially in terms of grooves and things. We went right along the same page. There wasn’t ever a conversation or plan about an end product, it was just let's do the best we can do.”

For John Carter, Songwriter is all about putting the spotlight back on his legendary father’s songwriting.

“I wanted it to be songs that mostly people hadn't heard and that paid close attention to who he was as a songwriter and who he was as an American voice,” he explained. “One of my most important focuses in the past 10 years [...] is to give history the opportunity to notice him as the great writer he is. I want to put that in the forefront. His writing voice specifically is a certain voice, that I think if America wants to know their history, that's a good place to look.”

Songwriter will be available to stream and download, as well as on CD and a variety of vinyl options, on June 28, 2024.

In the meantime you can listen to the first single, “Well Alright,” which is described as “an upbeat and infectious tune about finding love in, of all places, the laundry mat.”

Listen to “Well Alright” and pre-order Songwriter at johnnycash.lnk.to/songwriterpr.

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