Johnny Cash Archives Reveal Unreleased Treasures

03/07/06 8:00pm

by Eva Lampert (CHARTattack)

Johnny Cash's son, John Carter Cash, has stumbled upon a goldmine of music from his late father and will release some of the intimate recordings in a two-CD set titled Personal File in May.

Cash spent time at his House of Cash office in Hendersonville, Tenn. in July 1973 recording stories and a variety of songs with little more than his acoustic guitar. The material ranged from traditional folk and gospel tunes to originals and covers of songs by such artists as The Louvin Brothers and Johnny Horton.

The recordings were left undiscovered until 2004, following Cash's death the previous September. They were catalogued and 49 previously unreleased Cash solo tracks, half from '73 and the rest from later sessions of a similar nature, have been compiled for Sony BMG's reissue imprint, Legacy Recordings.

Personal File will be the first in what could become a series of archival Cash releases from what producer Gregg Geller calls "The Hendersonville Tapes."

Sony BMG will release Live In Denmark, a DVD of Cash's stage revue from the '70s, in June. There are a number of other demo and live recordings that could also see the light of day.

Among the other House Of Cash discoveries were test pressings of Cash's Sun records, publishing demos by Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson and multi-track audio masters from Cash's ABC-TV series, The Johnny Cash Show, including unaired songs by such guests as Bill Monroe, Stevie Wonder and Derek And The Dominoes.

The timing couldn't be better for the discoveries, since last year's Walk The Line biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon has caused a surge of interest in the man in black.

The Legend Of Johnny Cash compilation has been a top 10 seller over the past few months.