With his heart broken and his health failing, Johnny Cash saddled up one last time with Rick Rubin for the final curtain on both a career and one of the most remarkable collaborations in music history. Cash's swan song is uplifting and incredibly sad as he approaches his mortality with characteristic stoicism and courage. Perhaps the most intimate of an intimate series, "American V" puts Cash in our living room as he offers perspective on faith ("God's Gonna Cut You Down," "I Came to Believe,") death (Bruce Springsteen's "Further On [Up the Road]," "On the Evening Train") and, of course, love (Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind").
A lifelong fascination with trains comes full circle with Cash's final ride, "Like the 309," said to be the last song he ever wrote. Rubin here affords Cash a graceful exit rarely seen in music.
