Johnny Cash American Recordings to be Released in Vinyl Box Set
Vinyl audiophiles might be saving their nickels and dimes for the impending Record Store Day special releases, but beating RSD to the punch is a six-album vinyl box set from the Man in Black that’s going to be hard to resist. Just announced, UMe—the catalog division of the Universal Music Group—is releasing a box set of the entire Johnny Cash American Recordings-era music on March 23rd. It chronicles the era when Johnny Cash collaborated with legendary producer Rick Rubin and revitalized his career. The two made music together beginning in 1994 until nearly right up to Cash’s death in 2003.
The six album set includes the original American Recordings (1994), Unchained (1996), American III: Solitary Man (2000), American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), American V: A Hundred Highways (2006), and American IV: Ain’t No Grave (2010). All six albums will be pressed on high-quality 180 gram vinyl, and will be housed in a 12×12 cloth-covered box.
What is not included is the five-disc Unearted box set of previously-unreleased tracks from the American Recordings sessions.
Johnny Cash’s American Recordings era featured a stripped down production of mostly just Johnny and his guitar, singing standards, covers, and some originals hand selected by Cash himself. This approach endeared Cash to an entirely new generation of fans, and saw him return to commercial prominence. It also awarded Johnny Cash two Grammy Awards, one for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1995 for the original American Recordings album, and the Best Country Album in 1998 for Unchained. His cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” charted on both the country and rock charts in 2003, right before his death.
Clint
March 18, 2015 @ 11:22 am
Purchase in the next 24 hours, and you get a free pair of black horn-rim glasses, a flannel shirt, and a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!
RD
March 18, 2015 @ 11:31 am
As an added bonus, if you order two or more, you get a free “I hate country music, but I like Johnny Cash” t-shirt…
emfrank
March 20, 2015 @ 7:18 am
Most hipster tendency ever: I am cooler than all those hipsters.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
March 18, 2015 @ 11:35 am
I found “American IV” to be one of the strongest albums that Mr. Cash ever recorded. “American VI” I found to be one of his weakest.
Jack Williams
March 18, 2015 @ 12:20 pm
I thought the first three were great. IV was hit or miss for me. For starters, there were too many well known standards that I personally didn’t to hear sung by Johnny Cash. Especially Danny Boy (I’m a first generation Irish American and have just heard that song enough). But he wanted to sing them, so fair enough. The title track is fantastic. And I do like Hurt. I’ve never heard the original, so I all I know is his version.
I thought V and VI were more consistent efforts.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
March 18, 2015 @ 12:58 pm
you’re right, IV was loaded with standards. “I’m so Lonesome,” “Streets of Laredo,” but I felt that his performances were spectacular, given his advanced age and worsening health. VI on the other hand, while consistent, (and equally full of covers and standards (“for the good times” “Aloha Oe”)) I found bland.
Johnny Law
March 18, 2015 @ 1:52 pm
This is awesome and a must have!
LG
March 18, 2015 @ 2:57 pm
Unchained is a full-band album, the backing band being Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Just thought that was worth noting.
Blackwater
March 18, 2015 @ 4:55 pm
“a box set of the entire Johnny Cash American Recordings-era music” – not entirely accurate. The Unearthed songs are not available with this package. The Unearthed stuff is honestly the better stuff and there’s a lot of it (4 full albums + 1 “American Recordings Hits”).
I agree with Jack Williams above that there are just too many songs I just don’t want to hear Johnny sing. They’re unnecessary and sometimes a little cringe worthy.
pete marshall
March 18, 2015 @ 7:15 pm
I like Johnny Cash American recordings 1 the best. I want to get his Unearthed cd box set.
Sam Jimenez
March 18, 2015 @ 8:17 pm
I wonder, at which volume does it become a digital program shit onto vinyl, rather than a real vinyl record?
Bear
March 19, 2015 @ 11:17 am
I agree will these records just be spooled from digital transfers or the original recordings. And will they be the loudened- sorry I mean “remastered” recordings (i.e. looked at in wav format it is one lock of green without peeks and valleys). I have a cautious relationship with vinyl because of the dubious ways record companies cut corners in how they produced them these days often resulting in sound quality inferior to the MP3. Not to mention wax in general is not always equal in pressing.
Sam Jimenez
March 19, 2015 @ 1:50 pm
I’m sure the first of these were recorded analog, the later ones probably not. Either way, they’re going to destroy even the original analog recordings by digitally loudening- sorry I mean “remastering” them to get them to all sound the same. The they’re going to take the software developer’s representation of the music and shit it onto a piece of vinyl.
That’s the case with almost everything released on vinyl today. Even the old albums that are being re-released. They’re not being released as they were. They’re being sucked into some Microsoft Paint equiv. audio software, made really loud, than shit onto vinyl. And the hipsters eat it up like all the other shit that gets spoon fed to them.
If the music ever hits a computer, it doesn’t belong on vinyl.
Eric
March 19, 2015 @ 6:16 pm
This is one of the times when vinyl may be actually appropriate, since the original recordings were produced in the vinyl era.
Eric
March 19, 2015 @ 6:18 pm
Whoops, got that wrong. For some reason, I was thinking that these records were made in the 1980s.