American V: A Hundred Highways
| American V: A Hundred Highways | |||||
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| Studio album by Johnny Cash | |||||
| Released | July 4, 2006 | ||||
| Recorded | September 2002 – August 21, 2003 at Cash Cabin | ||||
| Genre | |||||
| Length | 42:45 | ||||
| Language | English | ||||
| Label | American and Lost Highway | ||||
| Producer | Rick Rubin | ||||
| Johnny Cash chronology | |||||
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| American series chronology | |||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| NME | (9/10) |
| Robert Christgau |
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| Pitchfork Media | (7.8/10) link |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Slant Magazine |
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American V: A Hundred Highways is the 93rd overall album and a posthumous album by Johnny Cash released on July 4, 2006. As the title implies, it is the fifth entry in Cash's American series. Like its predecessors, American V: A Hundred Highways is produced by Rick Rubin and released on Rubin's American Recordings record label via Lost Highway Records, as they currently distribute country releases from the American Recordings label. It was certified Gold on August 18, 2006 by the RIAA.
As with the other American series albums, the album includes covers, originals, and a re-recording of a song. The originals on this album are "I Came to Believe" and "Like the 309", the latter of which was the last song Cash ever wrote before passing away. Recorded on August 21, 2003, "Like the 309" was the next-to-last song Cash ever recorded; the last being "Engine 143" which was recorded for a Carter Family tribute album produced by John Carter Cash.
The album takes its name from a lyric on the track "Love's Been Good to Me" by Rod McKuen; the opening verse begins (emphasis added):
I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
The liner notes of Unearthed, a box set composed of outtakes from the first four entries in Cash's American series, claim "around 50" songs were recorded during the American V sessions before Cash's death on September 12, 2003. However, to date only two albums worth of material have been released, including American VI: Ain't No Grave, which was released in February 2010. In March 2014, Cash's son John Carter Cash, promoting the release of Out Among the Stars, a collection of recently unearthed recordings from the early 1980s, confirmed that "three or four albums" worth of unreleased material exists from the American sessions, with Rubin confirming that at least one additional album -- a follow-up to Unearthed -- is planned for future release.
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