Death can't stop The Man in Black: UMe will release a new Johnny Cash album this summer, drawn from unheard recordings from more than 30 years ago.

Available June 28, Songwriter features 11 vocals Cash cut in 1993 at LSI Studios in Nashville, augmented by recently-recorded new backing tracks at the Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, Tennessee by Cash's son John Carter Cash and co-producer David "Fergie" Ferguson. Every one of the tunes was composed solely by Cash himself, from lead single "Well Alright" and the romantic "I Love You Tonite" to songs that have been heard on other albums by the country icon ("Sing It Pretty Sue" was cut by Cash in 1962, while "Drive On" and "Like a Soldier" were re-recorded by Cash with producer Rick Rubin in 1994 on the fateful sessions that became American Recordings - the start of Cash's late-career comeback.

These original demos came at a time of transition for Cash. In 1987, he ended his lengthy association with Columbia Records and signed to Mercury, recording a series of respectful if modestly-received albums (later compiled by UMe in 2020). The fruitful collaborations with Rubin had not yet occurred, and the production team behind Songwriter sought to craft an album that would have fit between these two eras. "I think this record is the way I would have liked to have made one if I would have ever been in charge of one, before Rick Rubin or after Jack Clement," Ferguson said in a press release. "[John Carter Cash and I] went right along the same page. There wasn't ever a conversation or plan about an end product, it was just let's do the best we can do."

"My dad was probably just as clear as at any point in his life and I think that voice, which was kind of ignored at the time, needs to be heard," John Carter Cash said in that same release. "The man at that age, at that specific point in his life, deserves more attention and focus because he sadly didn't get as much as he should."

John Carter Cash - the only son of Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter, of the prominent American folk music family - and Ferguson assembled a crack team of session musicians and stars to join in on Songwriter. The nucleus of the studio band is guitarist Marty Stuart (who played in Cash's Tennessee Three in the '80s), bassist Dave Roe (who played on the original LSI sessions just as he'd begun to learn upright bass; he was one of Nashville's best-known players in that style when he passed away last year) and drummer Pete Abbott, a member of Average White Band in the mid-'90s. Additional color is added by keyboardist Mike Rojas, multi-instrumentalists Russ Pahl and Matt Combs, percussionist Sam Bacco, Nashville session guitarist Kerry Marx, and background vocalists Harry Stinson and Ana Cristina Cash (John Carter's wife). Guest musicians include Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach on the song "Spotlight," and duet vocals from Vince Gill on "Poor Valley Girl." Cash's longtime friend and fellow Highwayman Waylon Jennings guested on the original demos of "I Love You Tonite" and "Like a Soldier" and is featured here posthumously.

Songwriter is the fifth posthumous album by Johnny Cash, who died of complications from diabetes in 2003, four months after June's passing. Three albums of various Cash-Rubin sessions were assembled (2004's My Mother's Hymn Book, 2006's chart-topping American V: A Hundred Highways and 2010's American VI: Ain't No Grave) and Legacy Recordings issued Out Among the Stars in 2014, featuring updated versions of unreleased tracks from sessions produced by Billy Sherrill in the early '80s.

Songwriter will be available June 28 on CD and two vinyl variants: standard 180-gram black vinyl and a "smoke" color variant available through Cash's online store. The full track list is below.

Songwriter (Mercury Nashville/UMe, 2024)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Official Store (Smoke Color Variant with Lithograph)

1. Hello Out There
2. Spotlight
3. Drive On
4. I Love You Tonite
5. Have You Ever Been to Little Rock?
6. Well Alright
7. She Sang Sweet Baby James
8. Poor Valley Girl
9. Soldier Boy
10. Sing It Pretty Sue
11. Like a Soldier