20 Country Albums Every Rock Fan Should Listen To
11. American Recordings - Johnny Cash
It's completely understandable to see the legends of any genre start to make a few duds every now and again. I mean, that's life isn't it? No matter how hard you might try to retain it, there's no way you can capture the spark that you did back in your prime, right? Johnny Cash has a solution though: don't keep the spark going, start a whole new fire.
Joining Rick Rubin's Def American label in the '90s, this first stab at yet another comeback turned into one of the biggest career resurgences in music history, with Cash being rediscovered by an audience who weren't even born when he started making his first hits. What's even more intriguing is the amount of darkness Cash had kept all those years, with tracks like Delia's Gone having that same murder ballad energy as some of his greatest work.
This record also doesn't get enough credit for its covers, with Cash pulling from rock stars to find the most pitch-black stories he can find. You might not have realized Johnny Cash singing a song by Glenn Danzig was something you needed in your life, but it exists...and it's awesome. Cash would eventually put out more and more of these records before his eventual death in 2003, and yet even in his twilight years, this was a reminder of just why Cash was so beloved in his prime.