Johnny Cash's Out Among the Stars revives lost tracks

Out Among the Stars, a new album of "lost" Johnny Cash tracks that his estate only uncovered from his vast audio archives in recent years, is out today.

The 12-track release is the fourth posthumous Cash album to emerge since the death of the Man in Black in 2003.

"It stands out to me as a unique body of work, as something that my dad was proud of at the time. I can hear it in his tone and the way he presents himself. There's no denying it," the music icon's son, John Carter Cash, told CBC News.

Out Among the Stars comes from tracks Cash recorded with producer Billy Sherrill, who helped push country towards more of a pop sound, in 1984 when he was freshly out of a stint in drug rehab at the Betty Ford Centre and feeling refocused on his career, according to his son.

"What we have here is a picture of Johnny Cash from a prime in his life, when he was singing pitch perfect, he was energetic and he was also very creative."

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The songs include duets with wife June Carter Cash and country legend Waylon Jennings, but Cash's then-label Columbia Records chose to shelve them and ultimately drop him in 1986.

After his parents' passing, John Carter Cash began to sift through their storage facility in Hendersonville, Tenn., opting to digitize hundreds of audio recordings he discovered some of which led to the new album.

In the attached video, Carter Cash talks to CBC's Deana Sumanac about the origins of Out Among the Stars.