Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, is proud to announce the release of Out Among The Stars (Columbia/Legacy), a remarkable new album comprised of 12 recently discovered Johnny Cash studio recordings.

The tracks on Out Among The Stars were originally recorded in Nashville, Tennessee at Columbia Studios in 1981 and 1111 Sound Studios in 1984 and produced by Billy Sherrill, the architect of the "countrypolitan" sound who was heading A&R at CBS Records Nashville at the time.

On these songs—which include duets with June Carter Cash and Waylon Jennings—Johnny worked with an expanded ensemble featuring a young Marty Stuart on guitar and mandolin and Nashville A-Team members Jerry Kennedy (guitar), Pete Drake (steel guitar), Hargus "Pig" Robbins (piano) and Henry Strzelecki (bass).

The recordings, which have never been released in any form, are not demos, outtakes or alternate versions.  They remained in the vaults during the years Columbia Records released Johnny Cash's last albums for the label and were subsequently forgotten.

The recordings on Out Among The Stars first surfaced in 2012, when John Carter Cash, along with the Cash experts at Legacy, was cataloging his father's and mother's exhaustive archives in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and at the Sony Music Archives.  "When my parents passed away, it became necessary to go through this material," he says.  "We found these recordings that were produced by Billy Sherrill in the early 1980s…they were beautiful."

John Carter Cash, along with co-producer and archivist Steve Berkowitz, enlisted Marty Stuart, Buddy Miller and Carlene Carter, as well as other master musicians, to collaborate in restoring the album at the Cash Cabin Studios in Hendersonville, TN.

The result, Out Among The Stars, is a great lost Johnny Cash album connecting the revolutionary rockabilly of his Sun Records years to the epochal final albums he made for American Recordings.

2014 Sony