Lost Johnny Cash album 'Out Among the Stars' to be released in March

A long-lost, never-before-heard Johnny Cash album will finally see its release 10 years after the legend's death at age 71. Out Among the Stars, recorded with Country Music Hall of Famer Billy Sherrill in the early 1980s, will be released by Cash's estate, the Associated Press reports.

The album was never released by his label Columbia Records and had disappeared when they dropped Cash in 1986. According to the article, Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, hid the tapes in storage.

"They never threw anything away," said their son, John Carter Cash told the AP. "They kept everything in their lives. They had an archive that had everything in it from the original audio tapes from 'The Johnny Cash Show' to random things like a camel saddle, a gift from the prince of Saudi Arabia."

Apparently they had so much stored away that Cash's son and archivists at Legacy Recordings didn't find the Out Among the Stars material until last year, even though the family had issued other archival music from the late musician.

Cash was at a low point in his career when the album was recorded, and Sherrill, who produced the album, was pushing country music in a pop direction that clashed with Cash's style.

"It was the 'Urban Cowboy' phase," John Carter Cash told the AP. "It was pop country, and dad was not that. I think him working with Billy was sort of an effort by the record company to put him more in the circle of Music Row and see what could happen at the heart of that machine."

Despite Columbia never releasing the album, John Carter Cash believes the 12-tack album, which includes duets with June Carter Cash and Waylon Jennings, is an album worth putting out.

"We were like, my goodness this is a beautiful record that nobody has ever heard," he said. "Johnny Cash is in the very prime of his voice for his lifetime. He's pitch perfect."

Out Among the Stars is due out March 25. According to the AP, a number of music, book and restoration projects have begun in the past 18 months to mark what would have been the legend's 80th birthday and 10-year anniversary of his death.

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Johnny Cash