Recorded immediately in the wake of his hugely-acclaimed “American IV: The Man Comes Around” (recording began on the day its’ predecessor was finished), “American V: A Hundred Highways” is exactly what it purports to be: JOHNNY CASH’S last ever recordings, laid down in the months before his death in September 2003.
And from producer Rick Rubin’s beyond-moving sleevenotes through to the songs themselves, it’s devastating stuff. To say it’s emotional isn’t even close and I don’t think anyone involved in the recording process (which mostly took place in Cash’s Tennessee cabin studio with the additional musicians such as guitarists Mike Campbell, Smokey Hormel and Matt Sweeney and keyboard player Benmont Tench later adding discreet overdubs) was in any doubt that this would stand as The Man In Black’s very last will and testament.
Cash himself made no bones about the fact that the only thing that kept him going during those last few months following the death of his wife June Carter-Cash was the recording of this album, but while his own ill-health informs the songs in the sense that sometimes his vocals are wheezy and he’s struggling for breath, the performances themselves are never less than commanding. Right to the very end, Johnny Cash remained THE consummate storyteller and overall “American V” even surpasses his remarkable cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” as perhaps the perfect epitaph.
Inevitably, references to Cash’s imminent demise litter the sings. With just acoustic guitar and a lowing cello for support, the opening “Help Me” is totally devoid of sham or artifice. His voice is shaky and cracked as he sings “Lord, help me smile just one more smile, don’t think I can do things all alone” and the effect is simply stunning. Understandably, Johnny is closer to God here than perhaps ever before, and on tracks like the potent, self-penned “I Came To Believe” and the dark, self-explanatory “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” (last heard as “Run On For A long Time” in the equally redemptive hands of Blind Boys Of Alabama), he cuts to the very Gospel core of the material.
Of course, one of the features of Cash’s “American Recordings” series is his and Rubin’s ability to transform the unlikeliest of source material (everything from “Personal Jesus” through to “Danny Boy”!) into something special and moving and “American V” again finds the Cash injecting his own personal gravitas into the proceedings and moulding both the clearly fitting (Springsteen’s excellent “Further On Up The Road”, Hank Williams’s tearful “On The Evening Train”) and the on-paper-totally-unsuitable (Gordon Lighfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”) into something magnificent all his own. The original of the Lightfoot song is unbearably schmaltzy, but with Benmont Tench ably supporting on organ, Cash overcomes even one of his shakiest vocals to create something utterly resonant.
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Admittedly the second half of the album struggles to match the sombre intensity of the first, and while Cash’s takes of Rod McKuen’s “Love’s Been Good To Me” and Hugh Moffatt’s “Rose Of My Heart” (with June in mind, surely) are certainly touching, his version of “Four Strong Winds” struggles to make the grade and – while you certainly can’t deny the sentiments – his take on Don Gibson’s “A Legend In My Time” is the one place where “American V” approaches schmaltz and sentimentality. There’s no such problem with the elegant and hymnal version of “I’m Free From the Chain Gang” that closes the album, though, and when you also take into account arguably this reviewer’s favourite track, the chillingly autobiographical and bluesy “Like The 309” (“let them load my box on the 309”) you have a truly staggering achievement laid down by a man who had no illusions whatsoever that his day was drawing near.
Of course, I could bang on and try to explain the phenomenon that was and is Johnny Cash until the cows come home, but you sure as hell don’t need the likes of me to tell you we won’t see his like again. “American V: A Hundred Highways” lays it bare with the kind of courage and conviction most of us can only dream about and is surely the last word in Johnny Cash lore.
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