Johnny Cash - Out Among The Stars

The news of John Carter Cash accidentally coming across a lost album of his father’s work was enough to put record executives and music fans alike in a lather of excitement. However, when said album turns out to be from Cash’s relatively fallow ‘80s period – his amphetamine-gobbling wild years a distant memory and a decade before he’d be reborn as a gothic country overlord by Rick Rubin – the giddiness quickly subsides.

The majority of these 13 undiscovered songs are somewhat over-polished, thanks mainly to the predictable production from Billy Sherrill, famed for the countrypolitan sound, a bland blend of Nashville country and pop that is so middle-of-the-road, it should have cat’s eyes and a white line down its back.

The title-track’s tale of armed robbery and disenfranchisement in small town America is robbed of any latent power due to the magnolia nature of the production, complete with the kind of ‘boom tish tish’ percussion beloved of country ‘n’ Irish pub bands from Drogheda to Donegal. Similarly, ‘If I Told You Who It Was’ takes a humorous ditty about a romantic liaison and puts it through the Sherrill ringer to ensure any emotion is bled from its bones, while it’s hugely frustrating to hear the soul-less Cash-by-numbers of ‘Call Your Mother’, ‘Rock And Roll Shoes’ and ‘Tennessee’.

Much better are beautiful piano ballad ‘After All’, the heart-aching ‘She Used To Love Me A Lot’ and even the god-bothering ‘I Came To Believe’, thanks to the relative simplicity of the arrangements, which allow Cash’s bruised baritone to resonate. ‘Don’t You Think It’s Come Our Time’ is a touching duet with June, while even the beige honkytonk of ‘I Drove Her Out Of My Mind’ can’t disguise Cash’s black sense of humour. It’s all a far cry from the rawness of Cash’s Sun Records years or the simple majesty of his American Recordings...