• Track Listing

For nearly 60 years, the words of Johnny Cash have reached across cultural, spiritual and ideological borders. He was not only a singer of great songs, but a teller of universal hard truths about justice, faith and independence. It is in this spirit the new album, JOHNNY CASH: FOREVER WORDS, was created.

When Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash passed, they left behind what their son and JOHNNY CASH: FOREVER WORDS producer, John Carter Cash, describes as a “monstrous amassment of ‘things’” which included his father’s handwritten letters, poems and documents, ranging through the entirety of his life.

Over the past two years, a stellar cast of contemporary artists were invited by John Carter Cash to create new music to accompany these newly discovered Cash writings. These artists have adapted his words honestly and uniquely as they see fit, further showcasing the diversity and universality of Johnny Cash as a writer and storyteller.

• Album of Johnny Cash’s unknown poetry, lyrics, and letters set to music by an astounding array of contemporary artists
• Recorded primarily at the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, TN and produced by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash’s son, John Carter Cash and Steve Berkowitz
• Includes recordings by Ruston Kelly & Kacey Musgraves, Chris Cornell, Rosanne Cash, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Kris Kristofferson & Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, John Mellencamp, Elvis Costello, and more
• Follows the bestselling book, JOHNNY CASH – FOREVER WORDS: THE UNKNOWN POEMS

Among the featured artists on JOHNNY CASH: FOREVER WORDS:

• Ruston Kelly & Kacey Musgraves : The real-life couple and newlyweds record, “To June This Morning,” a song with lyrics taken from an actual letter Johnny Cash wrote to his wife, June Carter Cash.
• Chris Cornell: 21 years after Cash released a cover of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” for the Grammy-Award winning album Unchained, Cornell comes full circle, setting some of Cash’s own poignant and introspective words to original music on “You Never Knew My Mind,” one of his last solo recordings.
• Rosanne Cash: Cash’s eldest daughter interprets her father’s “The Walking Wounded,” marking only the second time she has collaborated with her half-brother, John Carter Cash.
• Alison Krauss & Union Station: The Grammy Award winning bluegrass group releases “The Captain’s Daughter,” their first new studio recording together in six years.
• Kris Kristofferson & Willie Nelson: The American music icons and lifelong friends of Cash open the album with “Forever / I Still Miss Someone” featuring Kristofferson reciting the last poem Cash ever wrote, alongside Nelson’s unmistakable acoustic guitar accompaniment.

Last fall, the publication of the best-selling Johnny Cash – FOREVER WORDS: THE UNKNOWN POEMS (Blue Rider Press) added a new layer to The Man in Black’s artistic influence. This collection of never-before-published poems, edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, gave the reader

Johnny Cash: The Music - Forever Words CD