The term "legend" is one of music journalism's most abused words. The idea of someone making records that will endure and become part of pop's mythology long after they've gone is usually too bold a statement. But in the case of Johnny Cash, who died last year, it's one of the few terms that can suffice.
Cash sang and wrote songs that spoke to ordinary people on their own level, and delivered them in a voice that resonated with timeless, other-worldly authority. Although he made country music he understood rock'n'roll, and it was in merging his peerless musicality with songs from outside his expected remit, and Rick Rubin's decision to pare the sound down to its barest essentials, that gave the sessions their power.
This box set, comprising five discs and a superb interview book, is culled entirely from the decade Cash worked with Rubin, but goes well beyond its brief. In Rubin Cash found probably his most intuitive collaborator, and the music they made together resonates all the more strongly. So, better than any career-long overview could have done, "Unearthed" provides a suitably epic epitaph for one of the most vital, visceral and important musicians of our times.
The sporadic weakness of Cash's failing voice is both this collection's boon and its bane. His increasing frailty and the sensation of listening to a man who knew his end was nearing, who could see the darkness closing in, is difficult to escape. But, in truth, it's a huge part of the fascination. The final disc, a best-of from the Rubin releases, ends with his mesmerising reading of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", where the voice is so fragile it seems to almost fall apart. This makes listening a heartbreaking, intrusive experience. The magic of these sessions was to put this elemental voice in a setting that was at once intimate, and disarming: you're never sure whether this is music you're supposed to be hearing.
This box set, monumental in both scope and content, was planned for release before Cash's death, but proves to be the necessarily final, monolithic statement his life and work merited. As with Verve's superb three-disc set of Big Bill Broonzy's final session, by concentrating on the end of the story, the music shines brighter, illuminating the life.
Disc 1, "Who's Gonna Cry", is bookended by songs made famous on his 1966 "Live At Folsom Prison" album, "The Long Black Veil" and "Dark As A Dungeon", both of which actually out-reach their earlier versions. Disc 2, "Trouble In Mind", takes Cash out of the solo acoustic guitar setting to pair him with some subtle electric blues accompanists. A sparse, superlative reading of Jimmie Rodgers' "T For Texas" is only bettered by a fizzing, frazzled interpretation of Steve Earle's "Devil's Right Hand". "Redemption Songs" provides the only slight dip, its tales of the everyday struggle lacking a little cohesion. The duet with Joe Strummer on Bob Marley's title track is almost unbearably poignant, and "Wichita Lineman", Jimmy Webb's tale of the lovelorn working man, is given a dramatic and evocative recitation.
But it's on the fourth disc here, "My Mother's Hymn Book", where Cash transcends the corporeal. Hearing him singing of a land "Where We'll Never Grow Old", or opining that "I'm Bound For The Promised Land" is an experience impossible to not be moved by. The songs here were taught to him by his mother, songs he had, literally, waited a lifetime to record. On its own, this disc, arguably the definitive Johnny Cash release, justifies them purchase price of the entire box.
