Johnny Cash - American VI: Ain't No Grave

American VI: Ain't No Grave closes Johnny Cash's partnership with Rick Rubin on a note of defiant faith, recorded in the final months of his life.

Taped in 2003 during the same sessions as American V and released in 2010, it finds Cash facing mortality head-on, his spirit very much intact. Rubin surrounds him with a small circle of players, including Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers, and keeps everything spare so that weathered, unmistakable voice carries every line. It was also the only American Recordings album with no re-recordings of his earlier songs.

The title track, an old gospel song by Claude Ely, opens the album with stomping, chain-rattling resolve, Scott Avett adding banjo. Sheryl Crow's 'Redemption Day' becomes a weary prophecy, Kris Kristofferson's 'For the Good Times' a tender goodbye, and 'I Corinthians 15:55', Cash's own composition, meditates on death with the calm of a man ready to meet it.

It debuted at number three in the US and stands as a moving final word from one of country music's true giants. Ten songs, barely half an hour, and not a moment wasted. Play it late at night with the lights low and let the Man in Black sing you out, on his own terms.