Johnny Cash – Out Among the Stars

There seems to be a decent amount of posthumous albums around these days....
Johnny Cash : Out Among the Stars
6.1 Legacy
2014 

Johnny Cash : Out Among the StarsThere seems to be a decent amount of posthumous albums around these days. Among them is Out Among the Stars, the third such album by the great Johnny Cash. The story goes that Cash’s son John Carter Cash discovered this ‘lost’ album back in 2012 in his parents’ storage vault and wanted it to get released to the public.

Out Among the Stars was recorded in 1984 and came at a time in Cash’s life when he was newly clean from a drug addiction. It is a collection of thirteen tunes, all recorded with then-veteran country music producer Bill Sherrill. It features June Carter Cash on the songs “Baby Ride Easy” and “Don’t You Think It’s Come Our Time” as well as Waylon Jennings on “I’m Movin’ On”.

The title track is a cool piece with that trademark country bassline and sounds happy enough, but is actually quite sad in its content as it talks about desperation and loss. However, its chorus bears a hopeful tone, saying, “Oh how many travelers get weary, bearing both their burdens and their scars, don’t you think they’d love to start all over, and fly like eagles out among the stars,” conveying the notion that we are all in this same boat of life and we all get weary at times. Only Johnny Cash can tell a story like that.

It is interesting to listen to this album and wonder why Cash decided not to put it out back in the ‘80s when it was made. It seems like it would have held up well in the country scene of that day. Quite honestly, it’s Johnny Cash, so that right there makes it a good record, but it doesn’t really get a fair shake in present day having had to follow up his exquisite American Recordings series. It’s always pleasant to hear something new from The Man In Black, but those albums would have been the perfect note on which to end.

Johnny Cash – Out Among the Stars

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