Product Description

'A Hundred Highways' is the posthumous fifth Rick Rubin-produced album from the man in black himself, Johnny Cash. A more than fitting finale to the 'American Recordings' series, this album is yet another timely reminder of Cash's great talent for taking recordings made famous by other artists and making them his own with his distinctive voice and dark sense of humour. Includes the final song Cash wrote before his death, 'Like The 309'.

Track Listing

1. Help Me
2. God's Gonna Cut You Down
3. Like The 309
4. If You Could Read My Mind
5. Further On Up The Road
6. On The Evening Train
7. I Came To Believe
8. Love's Been Good To Me
9. A Legend In My Time
10. Rose Of My Heart
11. Four Strong Winds
12. I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1527 in Music
• Released on: 2006-07-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 43 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The ethical questions surrounding this final album in the American Recordings series are as unavoidable as they are, ultimately, peripheral. While the vocal tracks were recorded in the months just prior to Johnny Cash's passing in September 2003, the arrangements weren't undertaken until two years later. And though producer Rick Rubin had become a trusted friend, the Man in Black wasn't around to approve or disapprove, let alone guide, the final sessions. However, if the pure power of these recordings doesn't quiet the skeptics, nothing will. With Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and slide guitar session pro Smokey Hormel on board (all three of whom appear on earlier Cash albums), along with guitarists Matt Sweeney and Johnny Polansky, the sound is stately and acoustic, but rarely staid, even as the dynamics of earlier recordings in the series are absent. Instead, the songs have a measured, elegiac intensity, the sound of musicians choosing their notes carefully and making just the right choices.

The songs Cash sings are, unsurprisingly, confessional and reflective: his mortality and his mistakes, his maker and his salvation, and the loss of his wife June and the end of his career may have weighed on his mind, but in these songs he both embodies and transcends his personal history. On "God's Gonna Cut You Down," as the musicians clap and stomp behind him, his voice cuts through the air like that same avenging hand. On the new original "Like the 309"--the last song Cash ever wrote--he cops to being short of breath, and that voice becomes a metaphor for what each of us will one day face. On Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Read My Mind," Rubin flirts with overwhelming the damp bittersweetness of Cash's phrasing in tasteful atmospherics, but the voice is implacable, hitting and finding notes one never expected he'd have the will to find. Likewise, it's hard to believe this is his first recording of Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds"; the elemental narrative seems to have been written for him. Two songs, however, Cash has recorded before: the born-again hymn "I Came to Believe" and the final spiritual, "I'm Free from the Chain Gang Now." The latter especially is a definitive testament, as is his version of Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)." "One sunny morning we'll rise, I know / And I'll meet you further on up the road," he sings. If only, John, if only. --Roy Kasten

---

Customer Reviews

Wow, his masterpiece
This is a masterpiece, this is how records should be done, crisp sounds, a great and passionate voice, an intensity that is difficult to see in other records. I think this is his best performance ever, too bad he was not there to listen to it. His version of "Further up on the road" is just unbelievable, I think Springsteen might have cried when he listened to it. Similarly "four strong winds" is really good and better, for example, than Neil Young's version on Comes a Time.
A record that will make you cry, with passion and soul. I don't give 5 stars easily but this is just too good.

A masterpiece of Country Music
I have been listening to Johnny Cash for about 30 years and when I sat down to listen to this album there were tears in my eyes, Johnny was obviously in greast pain when making these last albums, but he soldiered on to the end like a true Pro.
May you rest in peace Mr Cash, your music will live for ever.

cammyp06.

Awesome
I'd never been a fan of Johnny Cash or rather I'd never let myself be a fan. However I was in HMV broswing for a couple of albumns when I stumbled on this. I bought it and listened to it on the way home in the car and absolutely loved it. It's simplicity , depth and emotion make it an accessible and devastatingly beautiful album. There isn't a average or poor track on the albumn, they are all fantastic but my favourites are ''Help me'' , ''On the evening train'' and ''Rose of my heart'' . Read the other reviews for more info. Buy it and love it.