Johnny Cash's comeback album was just rough tapes from a living room

Johnny Cash sat in Rick Rubin's living room with a guitar and sang. He sang songs he remembered from growing up, songs that meant a lot to him, and songs Rubin asked him to try, just to learn what suited his voice.

Rubin, the record maker known for work with rap stars and rock bands, was not yet making an album. The living room sessions were a way for the two men to get to know each other. Rubin asked Cash to play his favorite songs, and sometimes suggested one to try.

This is a story about how those getting to know you recordings became the record. The plan was to test about 100 songs this way, choose the 10 the two men liked best, and cut them in a studio with a band. The numbers show how completely that plan changed.

After the living room work, Rubin took the chosen songs into the studio with a great band. It was interesting, he said, but it was not better. He tried it with a different band. That version was not better either.

"I guess those recordings from the living room, which we had no thoughts of ever anybody ever hearing, they have something that the real recordings don't have," Rubin said. They ended up putting out those living room recordings, which became the first album he made with Cash.

Rubin said he has seen the same turn happen with other artists. The Avett Brothers, a folk rock band, played their song "No Hard Feelings" in the studio a few times. It was okay, but not great. Then on one take, Rubin said it felt like time stopped. About a minute in, he remembered feeling frightened because it was so good, and hoping the band would get to the end so the performance would exist at all.

With singer Neil Young, the surprise ran the other way. The band recorded for a week and sounded so rough that nothing suggested they could play the songs. Young told Rubin the next week would be better. When they tried a song again, it was no better, so they went back and listened to the version from the first week.

The drummer in the room said, "Well, turn down the, um, turn down the bass a little bit. Maybe turn the piano up." Heard that way, with small repairs and adjustments, the feeling was there beneath the mistakes. Almost the whole album came from that first week.

For Cash, Rubin said the answer was the living room itself. Those simple tapes, made with no thought that anyone would hear them, were what the public heard.