Legacy Recordings
John Mellencamp, late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell and Elvis Costello are among the music stars who have contributed to a new Johnny Cash tribute album called Johnny Cash: Forever Words, which will be released on April 6.
The 16-track collection features various artists setting the late country icon’s poetry, letters and previously unused lyrics to music.
Other musicians who appear on Forever Words include country legends Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson; alt-country band The Jayhawks; Jewel; T Bone Burnett; and contemporary country acts Alison Krauss and Union Station, Brad Paisley and Kacey Musgraves.
Additionally, the album features Cash’s daughter Rosanne Cash and his stepdaughter, Carlene Carter.
The record is a companion to the 2016 book Forever Words: The Unknown Poems, a volume of unpublished Cash writings that was curated by his son, John Carter Cash.
“Determining the artist for each song was truly a matter of the heart,” says John Carter Cash, who co-produced the Forever Words album. “I picked the artists who are most connected with my father, who had a personal story that was connected with Dad.”
He adds, “It became an exciting endeavor to go through these works, to put them together and present them to different people who could finish them in a way that I believed that Dad would have wanted.”
Country singer Jamey Johnson, who is also featured on the album, revealed Cornell’s involvement in the project in an interview last June, shortly after the Soundgarden frontman’s death. Cash recorded a cover of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” for his 1996 album, Unchained.
You can check out a trailer about the making of Forever Words now on YouTube.
Here is the full Johnny Cash: Forever Words track list:
“Forever/I Still Miss Someone” — Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson
“To June this Morning” — Ruston Kelly and Kacey Musgraves
“Gold All Over the Ground” — Brad Paisley
“You Never Knew My Mind” — Chris Cornell
“The Captain’s Daughter” — Alison Krauss and Union Station
“Jellico Coal Man” — T. Bone Burnett
“The Walking Wounded” — Rosanne Cash
“Them Double Blues” — John Mellencamp
“Body on Body” — Jewel
“I’ll Still Love You” — Elvis Costello
“June’s Sundown” — Carlene Carter
“He Bore It All” — Daily and Vincent
“Chinky Pin Hill” — I’m with Her
“Goin’, Goin’, Gone” — Robert Glasper featuring Ro James, and Anu Sun
“What Would I Dreamer Do?” — The Jayhawks
“Spirit Rider” — Jamey Johnson
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