Sony
2006
Personal File
About This Album
Usually, when an artist of stature passes, the record company (or companies, and sometimes even family, look at the sad posthumous legacy of Townes Van Zandt for example) raid the vaults and unearth loads of embarrassing garbage along with a few gems. Personal File, issued by Sony Legacy, is very different. For starters, other than Hank Williams, there are no artists who have Cash's stature (arguably not even Jimmie Rodgers). Secondly, this material was not stored in Columbia's vaults but Cash's own. He began recording these songs -- most of disc one, and four songs from disc two -- at home in 1973, for no one but himself. The rest come from the his personal file up through 1982. While closing down the studio, museum, and store, John Carter Cash -- a fierce and honorable guardian of his parents' legacies -- invited the folks from Legacy in to sort through the many reels of demos, TV appearances, the awarding of honorary degrees, and speeches, and unreleased recordings. They found some tidy white boxes marked "Personal File," and it's from these tapes alone the tunes were drawn. Many of these are old folk songs passed on through the ages, some Cash sang as a kid, or heard from his companions: "Some of those old songs that I used to sing when I was a kid I still remember every word to 'em.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 and 18)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 and 18)

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