My Mother’s Hymn Book is a collection of fifteen hymns that Johnny Cash sang alone with an acoustic guitar. Rick Rubin produced it, and David Ferguson recorded it. The sessions took place in the fall of 1993 at Cedar Hill Refuge Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, with documented dates of 12 October and 1 November.
The songs were first issued in 2003 as the fourth disc of the box set Unearthed, and American Recordings released them on their own in 2004 (B0002362-02 in the US). Rubin said that Cash had found the hymn book his mother, Carrie, had sung to him from, and that he had sung these songs since he was four years old. Cash grew up in Dyess, Arkansas.
The program runs from “Where We’ll Never Grow Old” and “I Shall Not Be Moved” through “I’ll Fly Away,” “In the Garden” and “Just As I Am.” Several of the hymns were already in his catalog: “If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven” and “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning” were on Hymns from the Heart (1962), and “In the Sweet By and By,” “Softly and Tenderly” and “Just As I Am” on Johnny Cash Sings Precious Memories (1975). Rubin recalled that Cash wanted listeners to understand “I Shall Not Be Moved” as a devotional song, whatever other associations it carried.
Tracklist
- 1 Where We’ll Never Grow Old alt version 3:30
- 2 I Shall Not Be Moved alt version 2:36
- 3 I Am a Pilgrim alt version 2:32
- 4 Do Lord 2:12
- 5 When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder 1:36
- 6 If We Never Meet Again alt version 2:58
- 7 I’ll Fly Away alt version 3:57
- 8 Where the Soul Never Dies alt version 2:14
- 9 Let The Lower Lights Be Burning 3:14
- 10 When He Reached Down 2:14
- 11 Sweet By and By alt version 3:18
- 12 I'm Bound For The Promised Land 2:14
- 13 In The Garden 3:16
- 14 Softly And Tenderly 3:16
- 15 Just As I Am 2:38
