Recording Johnny Cash’s ‘Songwriter’

Nashville, Tennessee (August 1, 2024)—Released in late June, Johnny Cash’s posthumous Songwriter album (Mercury Nashville/Ume) takes listeners back in time to early 1993, just months before the country legend’s incredible career rejuvenation that began when he teamed up with megaproducer Rick Rubin later that year. Prior to the fortuitous team-up, Cash entered Nashville’s LSI Studio and recorded nearly a dozen demos with his band, but the songs were soon forgotten—and then languished on a shelf for more than 30 years until they became the basis for the new 11-track album.

Inside the Music Row studio, Cash and his band tore through the various tunes, written over course of his 40-year career. Capturing the sessions was LSI’s Harrison 4032C analog inline mixing console—a 32-bus inline desk in a 40-input frame loaded with 32 channel modules—installed at the facility in 1979. “What I really loved about that console was the warmth,” recalls producer, engineer and musician Pat Holt, co-owner of the studio. Holt worked on the Johnny Cash sessions at LSI in 1992 alongside fellow engineers Ken Little, Denny Knight, Chad Daniel and Mike Daniel, who was married to Cash’s daughter, Rosey. “The EQs and the preamps just sounded so natural,” he says of the 32 Series console.

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“I think Dave Harrison was a genius,” says Holt of the brand’s founder. Harrison had previously introduced the inline mixing console concept, featuring both an input and a monitor return path through each channel module, after founding Nashville pro audio retailer Studio Supply. He licensed the design to console and tape machine manufacturer MCI, for whom Studio Supply was a dealer, who released it in 1972 as the MCI JH-400, before establishing his own console company. The new company’s first product, launched in 1975, was the Harrison 32 Series — the world’s first 32-bus inline console.

Revitalizing Songwriter

For the new Songwriter album, Cash’s son, producer John Carter Cash, and David “Fergie” Ferguson, Johnny Cash’s longtime engineer and a co-producer on the new release, reworked those original LSI tracks, stripping them back to vocal and acoustic guitar and overdubbing new instrumentation. Featured musicians include guitarist Marty Stuart and the late bassist Dave Roe, who both previously played in Cash’s band, alongside drummer Pete Abbott and special guests Vince Gill and Dan Auerbach.

Holt still has LSI’s 32 Series console though which Cash and his band recorded in 1993, he says. Over the decades, the studio and its Harrison console were also used on projects by the Kendalls, the Allman Brothers Band, Boxcar Willie, Harry Nilsson, Alabama, Charlie Daniels, Dr. Hook, Lou Rawls, Helen Reddy, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Holt also has another 32 Series desk, designated serial number 3 by the Harrison factory, which he hopes to refurbish. “Until recently, I also had a Harrison 10B; I had it for years. It is a great sounding console. I kept the power supplies and the preamps out of it,” he says.

Thirty Years Later

In the 30-plus years since the demo session, thing have changed even if the “new” album makes Cash sound like it was recorded yesterday. Cash passed on in 2003, after a late-in-career rally of multiple hit albums created with Rubin.

Meanwhile, Ken Little acquired the studio’s 17th Street South building in 1983 and still owns LSI, along with his wife, Julie, and Holt, his business partner. The business is in the process of moving back into the original building, a former 1920s-era house that was exclusively occupied for many years until recently by a video company, and will be integrating a Dolby Atmos mix room there. A 3,000-square-foot facility featuring two vintage analog mixing consoles is also under construction in Nashville’s Berry Hill neighborhood, Holt reports, and will incorporate his Harrison Series 10 mic preamps.

And Harrison has continued to build on the legacy of its famed desk with the 32Classic, a brand-new analog console designed for modern workflows that integrates the classic 32 Series four-band parametric EQ and transformer-balanced Harrison mic preamps with onboard Dante conversion and 12-wide (7.1.4) immersive music monitoring. The Harrison 32Classic, available in 32- and 48-channel configurations, is now shipping.