For all the Americans such words as a country legend have been long associated with Johnny Cash. The author of hundreds of albums and thousands of songs has been also famous for his devoted love to his wife June Carter who died in 2003 and several months later he followed her. During those months he and his friend producer Rick Rubin recorded a new album in a series generally called American Records – American V: A Hundred Highways. The songs are mainly the covers of Cash’s numerous albums and there is a couple of those he has written not too long before his death. The record has been released posthumously and only in three years for Rubin did not want the release to go hand in hand with the Hollywood movie Walk The Line about John Cash in the beginning of his 46 years long musical career and the starting relations with June Carter. In spite of the fact that Cash’s health and age did not allow him to sound the same as he did years ago, the album is full of emotions and Johnny’s frail voice adds to its special almost sacred charm.
The selection of songs is brilliant on American V: A Hundred Highways. The opener Help Me starts the album with a most emotional point of love and despair. The Like The 309 is the last to be written and recorded by the American legend. A cover of Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind sounds dramatic and fits perfectly to the general slant of the record. Bruce Springsteen’s Further On Up The Road is sung with so much soul in Johnny’s fading voice that it makes it clear that a real talent cannot be ruined. In all the tracks the singer makes confessions for he feels that his days are coming to their end and he strives for sounding more sincere than ever. One can hear his deep thoughts concerning the God, his love and life. I Came to Believe depicts Johnny as a man strong enough to recognize his weaknesses in front of the higher power. A beautifully romantic love letter to his wife Rose Of My Heart can come home to anybody who knows what love is, and a nicely transcribed song of 1962 I’m Free From The Chain Gang Now closes the album with a lightly sad note.
Johnny Cash has been awarded with a huge number of various prizes, has sung in a quartet with Elvis Presley and has won the hearts of an incredible amount of fans. His voice sounding like a volcano preparing to explode is easily recognized all over the world and the young people dream of such strong and long love as there has been between John and June. The previous album American IV: The Man Comes Around was released in 2002 and was a long expected continuation of the series. The new album is not the last one for although Johnny Cash is gone he has faithful friend who are going to continue rerecording, arranging and producing the best creations of the Country King. Since on the latest record he has dwelled upon the themes of life, death, love, and God as viewed by an old but courageous and romantic man the album is a good way to learn something of what expects all of us in future. His baritone on American V: A Hundred Highways still has those deep notes that appealed to the audience so much as if saying: Johnny Cash is going to remain with us through his music and marvelous lyrics forever.
