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American V: A Hundred Highways | 
| Artist: Johnny Cash
Label: Mercury Records Ltd (London)
Category: Music
List Price: £9.99
Buy New: £4.98
You Save: £5.01 (50%)
New (54) Used (11) from £4.66
Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 611
Media: Audio CD
Running Time: 43
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 000276902
UPC: 602498626962
EAN: 0602498626962
ASIN: B0002W18MU
Release Date: July 3, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Help Me | | • | God's Gonna Cut You Down | | • | Like The 309 | | • | If You Could Read My Mind | | • | Further On Up The Road | | • | On The Evening Train | | • | I Came To Believe | | • | Love's Been Good To Me | | • | A Legend In My Time | | • | Rose Of My Heart | | • | Four Strong Winds | | • | I'm Free From The Chain Gang Now |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
The ethical questions surrounding this final album in the American Recordings series are as unavoidable as they are, ultimately, peripheral. While the vocal tracks were recorded in the months just prior to Johnny Cash's passing in September 2003, the arrangements weren't undertaken until two years later. And though producer Rick Rubin had become a trusted friend, the Man in Black wasn't around to approve or disapprove, let alone guide, the final sessions. However, if the pure power of these recordings doesn't quiet the skeptics, nothing will. With Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and slide guitar session pro Smokey Hormel on board (all three of whom appear on earlier Cash albums), along with guitarists Matt Sweeney and Johnny Polansky, the sound is stately and acoustic, but rarely staid, even as the dynamics of earlier recordings in the series are absent. Instead, the songs have a measured, elegiac intensity, the sound of musicians choosing their notes carefully and making just the right choices. The songs Cash sings are, unsurprisingly, confessional and reflective: his mortality and his mistakes, his maker and his salvation, and the loss of his wife June and the end of his career may have weighed on his mind, but in these songs he both embodies and transcends his personal history. On "God's Gonna Cut You Down," as the musicians clap and stomp behind him, his voice cuts through the air like that same avenging hand. On the new original "Like the 309"--the last song Cash ever wrote--he cops to being short of breath, and that voice becomes a metaphor for what each of us will one day face. On Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Read My Mind," Rubin flirts with overwhelming the damp bittersweetness of Cash's phrasing in tasteful atmospherics, but the voice is implacable, hitting and finding notes one never expected he'd have the will to find. Likewise, it's hard to believe this is his first recording of Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds"; the elemental narrative seems to have been written for him. Two songs, however, Cash has recorded before: the born-again hymn "I Came to Believe" and the final spiritual, "I'm Free from the Chain Gang Now." The latter especially is a definitive testament, as is his version of Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)." "One sunny morning we'll rise, I know / And I'll meet you further on up the road," he sings. If only, John, if only. --Roy Kasten
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
Wow, his masterpiece June 27, 2008
This is a masterpiece, this is how records should be done, crisp sounds, a great and passionate voice, an intensity that is difficult to see in other records. I think this is his best performance ever, too bad he was not there to listen to it. His version of "Further up on the road" is just unbelievable, I think Springsteen might have cried when he listened to it. Similarly "four strong winds" is really good and better, for example, than Neil Young's version on Comes a Time.
A record that will make you cry, with passion and soul. I don't give 5 stars easily but this is just too good.
A masterpiece of Country Music April 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have been listening to Johnny Cash for about 30 years and when I sat down to listen to this album there were tears in my eyes, Johnny was obviously in greast pain when making these last albums, but he soldiered on to the end like a true Pro.
May you rest in peace Mr Cash, your music will live for ever.
cammyp06.
Awesome April 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'd never been a fan of Johnny Cash or rather I'd never let myself be a fan. However I was in HMV broswing for a couple of albumns when I stumbled on this. I bought it and listened to it on the way home in the car and absolutely loved it. It's simplicity , depth and emotion make it an accessible and devastatingly beautiful album. There isn't a average or poor track on the albumn, they are all fantastic but my favourites are ''Help me'' , ''On the evening train'' and ''Rose of my heart'' . Read the other reviews for more info. Buy it and love it.
Believe the hype. April 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I took a while to get this CD, having bought the previous "American Recordings".
I wasn't convinced, partly put off by the fact that this was put together after he died, partly by some of the reviews on here - I just felt like it was too over the top, too much - how could it be so good - I wrongly assumed it would be a bunch of cast-off tracks brought together as some kind of final 'cash-in' by the record company.
I was completely wrong - this is the best of all the American Recordings in my opinion.
Believe the hype and buy it.
Heart-breaking, yet uplifting at the same time. December 17, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I came to Johnny Cash late in life (late 50s) via The Byrds and Willy Nelson, and hadn't realised until I heard this album that he was a staunch Christian, and a close friend of Billy Graham. Everything that I had imagined about "the man in black" was that he had lived a life and a half, and not all of it good. I'd assumed that he hadn't just given concerts in prison, but had lived there on occassions.
However, from the first track - "Help Me" - a prayer almost of despair, but with the hope of a "believer", it is clear that his faith was the cornerstone of his life, in addition, of course to his love of June. His faith also gives hope to his bitter-sweet renderings of covers like "If you could read my mind" and "Love's been good to me".
I just with I had a similar faith in something and Johnny's ability to love.
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