In the entertainment industry, your brand endures after you die. Tupac Shakur released seven record albums after his death and appeared via hologram at Coachella in 2012. Michael Jackson earned $160 million in 2013 despite being dead since 2009. And now Johnny Cash has released Out Among the Stars. The recording falls into the category of “lost” album — which is often a lofty code word for bad material that has been collecting dust in a vault for a good reason. And Out Among the Stars is a flawed effort.  But for Cash fans, the album is a useful artifact, like discovering a diary of a famous historical figure, and the songs show different dimensions Cash and the music brand we know as the Man in Black.

The material on the album is culled from a difficult period on Johnny Cash’s life, 1981 to 1984. The Nashville establishment ignored him, Columbia Records dropped him from the label, and he relapsed into an addiction to pills. But as Out Among the Stars demonstrates, he didn’t stop recording. The material, resulting from a collaboration with producer Billy Sherrill, offers a glimpse at different sides of the Man in Black brand and Continue reading →