Johnny Cash opened the newspaper on the morning of July 18, 1986 to read that after 28 years, 57 albums and 13 number one hits, his days with Columbia Records were over. The 54-year-old Cash - the iconic Man in Black, whose cavernous baritone, plainspoken narratives and signature boom-chicka-boom rhythm revolutionized American music - was one of Columbia's biggest stars during the 1960s and early 1970s, even headlining his own network television show. But his career cratered during the 1980s, and he hadn't even charted a Top 10 single since "The Baron" back in 1981. Cash desperately needed to move on from Columbia to rejuvenate his creative and commercial momentum, per biographer Graeme Thomson: "He needed a jolt, a change of scene, a new perspective." And he got them - but not until 1993, when he signed to producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings and created some of the most acclaimed and impassioned music of his career. This is the story of the period between Cash's embarrassing exit from Columbia and his rebirth at American, when he landed at Mercury Records to cut six erratic, little-noticed LPs culminating in a collection of re-recorded versions of his best-known hits, including the career-defining "Folsom Prison Blues."
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