Unearthed

Product Information

This set was expensive enough and considering anyone willing to shell out the money for this very likely already have American I-IV in their collection (not to mention the later V and VI), I found it was superfluous and unnecessary. The quality of these outtakes are just as good as the material that was originally released on the American Recording albums. The 9 Lp's are dirty with light blemish, light scuffs and they play all with a light background noise between tracks. Also, maybe the light scuff may have been occured in the transport, the disc can move in the sleeve since it's not enough tight.

The recordings, which run the stylistic gamut from stark balladry to punchy rockabilly to heartfelt gospel to classic covers, offer a stunning encapsulation of Cash's wide-ranging musical vision, and provide a fitting epitaph for his iconic career. My Mother's Hymn Book is a collection of Christian spiritual songs and hymns that Cash originally learned from his mother while growing up.Comes with a very handy, entertaining and interesting little book; quite informative and full of cool facts from that era. Versions of Down the Line, I'm Movin' On and Carl Perkins' Everybody Wants to Be My Baby should have seen the light of day long before this set.

I was lucky enough to get this eventhough is out print from some time since I wasn't aware that this box was released at that time.

In terms of the set itself my only complaint is the unnecessary 5th disc featuring previously released tracks from the first 4 American CDs (except for "Thirteen" which is actually a longer alternate take or edit than the version previously released). If you're a fan you SHOULD get this, and if like I you praise Cash's American Recordings era is mandatory to own it. For example, there's an incredible version of The Devil's Right Hand, a song recorded by the Highwaymen in the mid-90s, but Cash's sparse version, accompanied only by an electric guitar, is by far the superior performance. Over the course of five mesmerising CDs, Unearthed shows us just how Johnny Cash's now-legendary handful of recordings for American Records came to be. Let the Lower Lights Be Burning" was previously recorded by Cash for his 1962 album Hymns from the Heart.

This was Cash's final album devoted to previously unreleased performances of faith-based music and hymns, following a long string of such releases dating back to 1959 and individual singles and album tracks even before that. My Mother’s Hymn Book contains 15 gospel standards and Best of Cash On American as the title suggests offers a 15-song selection of highlights from Cash’s first four albums with Rubin. Neither are the definitive statements that some of Cash's covers from this period are (his glorious takes on Nick Lowe and Danzig, to name just two), but they're still very much worth hearing.Johnny Cash’s much-acclaimed box set of primarily unreleased material, Unearthed, is to be reissued as a nine-album vinyl box set.