On the perfectly-fitting date of July 4, American Recordings will release a new Johnny Cash studio album, American V: A Hundred Highways. Leading up to his death on September 12, 2003, the country icon was recording material with producer Rick Rubin. In fact, he began recording the songs that would comprise the album immediately after finishing American IV: The Man Comes Around. In addition to his own songs, contributing songwriters for the album include Bruce Springsteen, Hank Williams and Rod McKuen. Rubin specifically held off releasing this collection until after the press train died down from the movie and commemorative, greatest-hits packages. At press time, there was no word as to whether this is the final release of new material or not. Rubin said in a recent press release: "He always wanted to work. Every morning when he'd wake up, he would call the engineer and tell him if he was physically up to working that day. Our main concern was to get a great vocal performance. Johnny would record a song, send it to me and I would build a new track up under it. In the past, at the end of this process, he'd come to LA And we'd go through everything together, he would re-record any vocal bits that needed re-recording. But this time, we didn't have that opportunity." He continued, "I think that American V may be my favorite of all of the albums in the American series... I think that this is as strong an album as Johnny ever made." Some song titles include: "Help Me," "If You Could Read My Mind," "God's Gonna Cut You Down," "Love's Been Good To Me," "On The Evening Train," "Further On (Up The Road)," "I Came To Believe" and "Like The 309." www.johnnycash.com
