The recordings Johnny Cash started making for Rick Rubin's American label in 1993 launched a journey through the Great American Songbook – from traditional tunes to alt-rock – that continued until, literally, the end of his life. What wasn't known at the time was that Cash had anticipated the American Recordings concept 20 years earlier. Deep within the House of Cash, Johnny Cash’s recording studio, office suite, and museum in Hendersonville, Tennessee, behind the studio’s control room, was a small vault-like space in which many of his most prized possessions were stored. A collection of rare firearms dating back to the 18th Century, some personal effects of Jimmie Rodgers, artwork and letters from fans all over the world and much more was carefully arranged and locked away for safekeeping. Then there were the tapes. Hundreds of them. Demos from songwriters, album masters, multi-tracks of the ABC television series, and some boxes marked simply Personal File. These are Johnny’s most intimate sessions, recorded mostly in 1973 and then subsequently at his leisure. Just a lone voice and an acoustic guitar, singing songs and telling stories about them.
Personal File features 49 previously unreleased recordings. These songs show Johnny exploring 19th-century parlor tunes, Tin Pan Alley pop, gospel, little-known Cash originals, classic and contemporary country, and even a recitation of Robert Service's poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. The first disc contains secular material: love songs and tour songs and covers and country laments. Lefty Frizell's hit Saginaw, Michigan gets an energetic performance, as does Girl In Saskatoon, a tune Cash co-wrote with Johnny Horton. I Wanted So, a sentimental song about a man who failed to connect with his father before the old man's death, is devastating. There are also two otherwise-unrecorded songs: It's All Over, an early tune which would have made a good rockabilly track back in the Sun days; and A Fast Song, a slight, but funny throw away with Cash scatting a guitar solo over his rhythm playing. The second disc is entirely spiritual, and here Cash sings with more fervor, especially on old favorites like Who At My Door Is Standing, In The Sweet Bye and Bye and Life's Railway To Heaven. The tunes Cash wrote to celebrate his faith are as emotionally diverse as his secular work. Few of these 49 titles will be familiar to even longtime fans, but the prevailing themes of emotion, family, heartbreak and joy are vintage Cash.
This album is a gift – a remarkably intimate portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, alone in his home, telling tales and strumming lives with his fingers. All in all, the release feels like a scrapbook of sorts: half entertainment, half autobiography in song. It is a great compilation of songs that give a real insight to who Johnny Cash really was. His commanding voice is in its prime, the setting is spare and intimate, and his song choice draws from hymns and hits to reveal a deep and complex inner life – of course, it's great. His conversational, unpolished performances keep the mood loose and often add levity to the proceedings. Listening to Personal File feels like reading an artist's journal or an author's correspondence. These 49 songs at times seem almost too personal, as if they actually were never intended for a public audience. For those enchanted by the illness-ravaged soulfulness of Cash's later American Recordings, hearing him in his prime is not only breathtaking – it underscores the depth of his still-remarkable musical vision. If someone were expecting the hard driving rhythms that Johnny Cash was famous for, they would be greatly disappointed. If they are looking for an album that has songs from the heart and soul of Johnny Cash, then this is it.
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