I’ll always look forward to any Johnny Cash recording. He’s definitely one of the fingers on my hand to count of artists I’ll enjoy until my own grave. But objectively, “Ain’t No Grave” is a nice album to hear, even if you’re not a ravenous fan of the man. Sure, it’s not quite as good as the previous records Rick Rubin produced of his, but as a collection of leftover stuff that wasn’t good enough to be on the last album, it isn’t a bunch of lousy outtakes, either.

Some of it is a bit too familiar. The opening track, “Ain’t No Grave” sounds a bit too much like the opening track on his last work, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”, with near identical foot stomping effects. But that’s more Rubin’s fault than Cash’s, and frankly, it sounds good on both, so who cares?

These are definitely the songs of a man who knows he’s dying and is OK with it, both aurally and lyrically. His voice is aged and broken, but warm and pleasant at the same time. Not so much like a Grandpa singing from his bed, but a wise old man in his rocking chair on his porch with a shotgun in one hand, and The Bible in the other. Cash is a God fearing man, and the hymn-like structure of many of his songs makes that clear. Rolling Stone magazine quotes Rubin as saying that he wouldn’t record John Lennon’s “Imagine” because he didn’t like the line, “Imagine there’s no Heaven”.

“1 Corinthians 15:55″ is the sole Cash original on the album, and there aren’t any easy pop covers this time around, except a pleasant version of Sheryl Crow’s “Redemption Day”.  “Satisfied Mind” is a nice song about how money and fame don’t give you happiness, while “Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound” is a nice song about a wanderer looking for answers. There’s not a track on the collection I felt like skipping over, so that’s always a good sign.

The album ends with the 1936 western classic  “Cool Water”, Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream”, and ends with a wistful version of Queen Liliʻuokalani’s Hawaiian standard, “Aloha ‘Oe”. You can almost picture him in a canoe with June paddling of into the sunset as the song fades.

This is being billed as Johnny Cash’s last studio album, but Rick Rubin apparently has even more tracks that might be used as extras on a giant box set in the future. I can’t help but think that we’ll be hearing new Cash stuff for quite a long time, though. He was a prolific performer with thousands of concerts. His son released an album of old recordings he found in a box some time ago, too.

But Johnny’s already released about 20 times the amount of great songs that most artists aspire to, so I’m happy if this is it.

Aloha ‘Oe, Johnny.