The Rolling Stone said, “The American Records were stark, stripped-down, mostly acoustic meditations on the more apocalyptic side of Cash’s persona.” Cash covered Beck, Nick Cave, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Soundgarden, Danzig, and, of course, Nine Inch Nails. The albums wonderfully capture Cash’s famous baritone as powerfully as ever but with much more feeling. With these albums, Cash surely lived up to his reputation as the “Man In Black,” not that anyone really doubted this.

Two of these albums were released posthumously. It is easy to hear in Cash’s voice that he is aging and his health is failing as he goes from the first to the last two of these great albums. If you know anything about his life, you probably know that he was devoted to his wife, June Carter Cash, and her death brought real emotion and sorrow to some of these recordings.