JOE BREENreviews JOHNNY CASH

American VI: Ain’t No Grave

Lost Highway ****

Johnny Cash would be 78 next Friday had his frail body not checked out of this life in 2003. So this latest and last album in Cash's American series has that eerie sense of a voice beyond the grave. Cash was desperately ill when Rick Rubin made these recordings but, despite his obvious weakness, his singing is full of dignity, warmth and purpose. The 10 tracks include a last run through some old friends (Kris Kristofferson's For the Good Times, a particularly affecting salute to Hank Snow's I Don't Hurt Anymore), while Sheryl Crow's Redemption Daystrikes a more contemporary note. Tom Paxton's Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Boundhas never sounded so apt, Cash rising to the prospect of his final journey. Rubin sets the grim tone well with the opening title track, but it is the opposite bookend, the swaying Hawaiian farewell ballad Aloha Oe, that is a perfect pathos-laden exit for the great man. www.johnny cash.com

Download tracks: Aloha Oe, I Don't Hurt Anymore, Ain't No Grave