Johnny Cash • American V: A Hundred Highways

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Superman Returned in 2006 and so he did! Johnny Cash's grave couldn't contain him, thank you Rick Rubin. With the release of Walk The Line last year, Johnny Cash couldn't be hotter. We seem to be mining even more our "legends" as they fade, so American V: A Hundred Highways would seem to be the ultimate goldmine. I mean, the dude's story has just won some movie awards, he is singings other people's songs to acclaim, why not jump on it?

The only caveats here are that you have a producer here who was in the process all along and an artist who was dedicated throughout, not a poacher! He was not some fly by night floozy , he was the Bad Ass Man in Black with the Voice from the Ring of Fire! Johnny obviously senses his mortality on American V, but he had been giving us hints of that for sometime. Johnny's playing and Rubin's production pull together while not something cheery, certainly an album that will have you tapping your toes to Johnny's gravelly baritone. Take for instance Cash's version of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind". In virtually anyone else's hands, even Lightfoot's, this song is an example of extreme cheese, and Rubin's production does ride the fine line of overdoing it. But ol' JR still had enough left in the tank to shine through and the rest of the music does not overwhelm him. Therefore, the song stands out once you get over the fact that it is indeed If You Could Read My Mind.

Johnny's one true original song on the album "Like the 309" is a haunting preview of what was to come, as the 309 comes for John's pinebox to take him down the line, but if anyone can chant about a train engine chugging down the tracks he can. Another standout is Cash's version of Bruce Springsteen's "Further On Up The Road" as well as a couple romantic numbers to June. Critics decrying the fact that this posthumous release has been released two years after Cash's passing miss the key point, the fans get more fantastic music from an artist who loved to work and produce, particularly in his later years. And ha ha, he's still got one more of these albums coming, so deal with it, souiee!