Johnny Cash’s last CD — to be released Friday, six years after his death — ends with a tune Cash always intended as his musical farewell: “Aloha Oe.”

The disc titled “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” is the sixth of the American Recordings series Cash made with producer Rick Rubin.
The disc's release coincides with what would have been Cash’s 78th birthday.
Like the series’ fifth disc, released posthumously in 2006, it contains mostly recordings made by Cash in the last few months of his life. His way of working through the grief over his wife June’s death, also in 2003, was to work as much as his health permitted.
The final sessions produced enough material for two discs, and it was left to Rubin to decide how they would be configured. The 2006 disc was largely a rumination on mortality, but Rubin tells the Associated Press the new one is more about how a person’s energy can live on after death. The cover is a picture of Cash as a child.
Rubin usually selected songs for Cash to try, but he says the singer chose the traditional Hawaiian tune “Aloha Oe” as the final song of his final album. He enjoyed spending time in Hawaii and loved that song, Rubin said.
Cash’s final words before the music ends: “Until we meet again.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this report
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