On the eve of the release of the new Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, I assembled all my Cash records to listen to classics like Orange Country Blossom and Live at San Quentin, as well as a couple of random compilations. It's easy to forget the first spine-tingling sensation you get listening to the young Cash's voice, that baritone armor covering miles of brandy wounds. Songs like "The Wall" and "Ring of Fire" give the impression of a young man with fire in his belly and shotguns growing out of his shoulders. Going through the albums, I came to my favorite part: the American Series. After Cash's career came to a seeming dead end in the 1980s-when Cash's label dropped him, and he released painful self-parodies like "Chicken in Black"-he was approached by Def Jam co-founder and reputed rap/rock impresario and producer Rick Rubin and signed to the fledgling American Recordings label. Rubin harnessed Cash's abilities, giving him back his soul by doing away with all the pomp, the orchestras and the excess, and intimately recorded Cash in his home with just guitar and vocal.

The resulting material was a mix of old Cash songs, country standards and contemporary covers suggested by Rubin. The cover of the first American Recordings album portrayed the Man in Black sans color, standing in a field, guitar in front, with a white dog and black dog flanking his sides and hair devilish in the country wind.

He looked like he had just returned from Hell and was ready to tell his side of the story-it was a rebirth worthy of Bob Dylan.

This begins to explain why Cash's American Recordings, his final four albums (plus one box set) spanning from 1994 to 2003, are my favorites of his albums, and the most exemplary of his career. The whole concept was that Cash had seen the worst, lived in darkness and somehow survived, though not unscathed. This was a man playing songs with explicit truths about love and mortality that touched upon experiences everyone can relate to. These were truths unadorned, sung with such conviction that the man sounded like he was actually breathing the songs. There was no importance placed on technical abilities; these albums were defined by the cracked backup vocals and the buttons of Cash's shirt hitting the guitar, the silence of the porch where many of the songs were recorded.

Each album services a slightly different mood. The first, American Recordings, as mentioned before, is the sparsest, recorded entirely live. It begins with Cash's own version of the standard "Delia's Gone," and includes the truly beautiful original "Like a Soldier" and the startlingly intense cover of the Danzig song "Thirteen." The album is best for late and lonesome fall days-the kind of disc a person could learn every chord and word to and play on their own.

On the second album, Unchained, Cash is backed up by Tom Petty's band, the Heartbreakers. It is perhaps a more consistent album than the first American Recording, and is the liveliest sounding of the Series.

On the third album, Solitary Man, Cash sounds much older and sicker. As a result, there are fewer original tunes, but even more care in the vocal delivery. No breaths could be wasted, no sound out of place. From here on, Cash had to assume each was his last album. Solitary Man is probably my personal favorite, containing amazing interpretations of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man," the standard "That Lucky Old Sun" and Will Oldham's "I See a Darkness." This album finds a fragile man accounting for his past, facing the sun, but continuing down his path.

The fourth album is The Man Comes Around, whose title track is one of Cash's final great originals. This album is the saddest of the American Recordings-very intimate, with covers especially poignant and sentimental. Somehow, Cash takes material that would seem totally unsuited to him, like The Eagles' "Desperado," Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" and Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge over Troubled Water" and puts so much heart and soul into them that the guitar sounds like it's going to break at any point.

Immediately following Cash's death, the enormous and rewarding Unearthed box set was released, which rounds up a lot of unused material-mostly spirituals and covers. Supposedly, the fifth American Recordings is due out sometime next year, and will mark the end of the series.

What these albums boil down to are the songs: They chronicle a man who survived through music all his life, given the chance to stare death in the face. Much of the beauty of these albums is the ambivalence between life and death, love and hate, the difference between fighting and giving up. Maybe it's about someone taller than yourself singing you a song on your porch, a great old voice telling some truly timeless stories.