Johnny Cash - American Outtakes (1993)

I'm kinda surprised I haven't posted this album yet, because it's exactly what this blog is all about. It's a classic example of an album that should exist, and I'm baffled that it still hasn't been officially released. If you're a Johnny Cash fan at all, you need to hear this.

I'm not a huge country music fan, but I am a big Johnny Cash fan. To me, he's one of the greatest musicians of all time. But after decades of success, his career had reached a low point in the early 1990s. His still had his vast musical catalog, of course, but few were interested in his new albums. Then producer Rick Rubin stepped in. He gave Cash's career a rebirth with the album "American Recordings," recorded in 1993 and released in 1994. Cash was recorded in totally stripped down mode, just him and his acoustic guitar, and he was given a bunch of very interesting songs to play. Personally, I consider "American Recordings" a five-star album, and it's my favorite Cash album.

But it turns out the 13 songs on "American Recordings" were far from the only songs recorded for that album. He played dozens more, then he and Rubin picked out their favorites for the album. So what happened to all the rest? In 2003, the same year Cash died, the box set "Unearthed" was released, and many more songs that Cash recorded in 1993 in acoustic mode appeared on that. But, surprisingly, many were not included on that, and remain officially unreleased to this day.

In the late 1990s, a bootleg appeared called "American Outtakes" that was nothing but outtakes from the 1993 Rubin-produced recording sessions. That came out before "Unearthed," so some songs on it later were officially released. What I've done here is remove all the released songs. Happily, that still leaves 45 minutes' worth of music, which is an ideal album length, in my opinion.

The bootleg has excellent sound. However, I've edited many of the songs, because the bootleg took a "warts and all" approach, including false starts. Most of those are just Cash playing a few seconds of the song and then stopping, often because he has to cough. So unless you're a big fan of hearing people cough, you're not missing anything from having the false starts removed. I also made an edit to "All of God's Children Ain't Free" because that, alone of all of the songs on the album, ended prematurely, right in the middle of a chorus. I patched in the rest of the chorus from earlier in the song to give it a proper ending.

Is this album as good as "American Recordings?" No. That album has some really great songs, many of them specifically written for it. This is more of a collection of traditional songs, and redone songs from earlier in Cash's career. But still, as Cash albums go, it's one of my favorites. Since Cash died in 2003, there have been some archival albums released, including some from the very end of his life when his voice was failing him. I honestly don't understand why that material has been released, and yet this hasn't, back when his voice and musical powers were at the best.

By the way, not all the songs are just Cash and his acoustic guitar. "I Witnessed a Crime" has Billy Gibbons, the guitarist from ZZ Top, playing guitar on it. Also, the last two songs have some other instruments on them. But they don't have drums of them, and they're still acoustic in nature.

01 What On Earth Will You Do for Heaven's Sake (Johnny Cash)
02 The Drifter (Johnny Cash)
03 I Witnessed a Crime (Johnny Cash with Billy Gibbons)
04 The Next Time I'm in Town (Johnny Cash)
05 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
06 Friends in California (Johnny Cash)
07 The Wonder of You (Johnny Cash)
08 East Virginia Blues (Johnny Cash)
09 Go On Blues (Johnny Cash)
10 Go Where I Send Thee (Johnny Cash)
11 Loving Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Johnny Cash)
12 T for Texas [Solo Version] (Johnny Cash)
13 Bad News (Johnny Cash)
14 All of God's Children Ain't Free (Johnny Cash)
15 One More Ride (Johnny Cash)
16 Don't Sell Daddy Any More Whiskey (Johnny Cash)
17 The Devil (Johnny Cash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15602890/JohnnyC_1993_AmericnOuttakes_atse.zip.html

There have been various versions of this bootleg released, with various titles and covers. I picked a cover that I particularly liked. It's very much in line with the look of the "American Recordings" cover. I shortened the title.