Johnny Cash

American V: A Hundred Highways

American/Lost Highway/Universal

David McPherson (CHARTattack)

07/04/2006 8:04pm

Producer Rick Rubin returns with what could be the final chapter in Johnny Cash's American recordings series. This fifth installment partly recorded at Cash's country hideaway in Hendersonville, Tennessee, picks up where the previous Grammy-winning discs left off. Intimate and raw, these dozen songs show the master storyteller at his most vulnerable and haunting. Once again, Cash picks some of his favourite songwriters to cover, including a pair of Canuck legends, singing Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds" and Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind." For good measure, Cash also includes two of his final compositions ("Like The 309" and "I Came To Believe"). While the Man In Black's voice wavers at times, the listener clings to each of his words, knowing these songs were some of his final musical contributions to the American country canon.