Out Among the Stars is a posthumous studio album from Johnny Cash, released through Legacy Recordings on March 25, 2014. The recordings come from lost 1980s sessions with famed countrypolitan producer Billy Sherrill which were shelved by Cash's record company, Columbia Records, and discovered by Cash's son John Carter Cash in 2012. Cash also recorded the 1981 album The Baron with Sherrill in an attempt to turn around his dismal album sales but the strategy did not work, leaving his record executives eager to end his affiliation with the label. The album also doubles as a posthumous release for singer June Carter Cash, Johnny Cash's wife, who is featured on vocals on two tracks, and for Minnie Pearl and Waylon Jennings, who provide vocals on two other songs.
Two of the tracks would later be rerecorded by Cash at American Recordings and would be released posthumously prior to earlier versions being included here; "I Came to Believe" on American V: A Hundred Highways and a non-duet version of "I'm Movin' On" appears in the box set Unearthed.
Release and promotion
The album was preceded by the single "She Used to Love Me a Lot" with a b-side remix of the song from Elvis Costello.
Reception
Critical reception
Prior to its release, Stereogum named it one of the most anticipated albums of 2014.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that Billy Sherrill "winds up simply sweetening Johnny without changing his core sound". He added that the album "is generally chipper and bright" and "one of Cash's stronger '80s albums".
Rob Tannembaum's review in Rolling Stone mentions Cash's fading star power in the early 1980s amidst the "Urban Cowboy fad". Tannembaum continued: "You might expect Out Among the Starsâ€"a set of unreleased songs he cut with Sherrill in 1981 and 1984â€"to be a contract-fulfilling sleepwalk. (Cash put out several mostly mediocre LPs in those years, but left this material unfinished; it was discovered after his death.) Instead, it proves that even at his most uninterested, Cash couldn't help but make a record with weight, moral complexity and grim humor."
Commercial performance
Released on March 25, 2014, Out Among the Stars debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums charts, selling 54,000 copies its first week. As of June 29, 2014, the album has sold 149,000 copies in the United States.
In the UK, the album debuted at No. 4 in the album chart. The album has sold 63,700 copies in the UK as of July 2014.
Further release of additional material
In a March 2014 interview promoting the release of Out Among the Stars, John Carter Cash indicated that there may be as many as "four or five" albums worth of previously unreleased material from Cash's 1990sâ€"2000s American label recording sessions, with Cash's last producer, Rick Rubin indicating at least one more such release is planned for the future.
Track listing
- "Out Among the Stars" (Adam Mitchell)  â€" 3:02
- "Baby Ride Easy" (Richard Dobson)  â€" 2:43
- "She Used to Love Me a Lot" (Kye Fleming, Dennis Morgan, Charles Quillen)  â€" 3:11
- "After All" (Charles Cochran, Sandy Mason)  â€" 2:47
- "I'm Movin' On" (Hank Snow)  â€" 3:09
- "If I Told You Who It Was" (Bobby Braddock, Curly Putman)  â€" 3:05
- "Call Your Mother" (Cash)  â€" 3:17
- "I Drove Her Out of My Mind" (Gary Gentry, Hillman Hall)  â€" 3:01
- "Tennessee" (Rick Scott)  â€" 3:27
- "Rock and Roll Shoes" (Paul Kennerley, Graham Lyle)  â€" 2:41
- "Don't You Think It's Come Our Time" (Tommy Collins)  â€" 2:17
- "I Came to Believe" (Cash)  â€" 3:29
- "She Used to Love Me a Lot" (JC/EC Version) (Kye Fleming, Dennis Morgan, Charles Quillen)  â€" 3:23
- Tracks 1â€"8, 10, 12, recorded in 1984
- Tracks 9, 11, recorded in 1981
- Track 13 originally recorded in 1984, remixed in 2013