One of the last, enduring memories of Johnny Cash is his heart-wrenching video for “Hurt,” a remake of the Nine Inch Nails’ track from the industrial rock group’s iconic 1994 The Downward Spiral album.

Cash’s critically acclaimed and award-winning video was cut three months before the death of his wife, June, who appears in the video, and seven months before Cash’s death in 2003.

John Carter Cash, Johnny and June’s only child, has included his own version of the song on his recently released album, We Must Believe in Magic.

“I knew ‘Hurt’ way before Dad recorded it. In 1992, Downward Spiral was one of my favorite albums. I was at his house, and he calls me into his office. He said, ‘Have you heard The Downward Spiral?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. Have you, Dad?’” Cash says, chuckling at the memory. “He said, ‘Rick [Rubin] wants me to record it. Do you think I should? And I said, ‘It’s really dark, but it’s honest.”

During a trip to a California studio, Cash recorded a demo and presented a version to his father, who then cut his own vocals over his son’s track.

On We Must Believe in Magic, the younger Cash’s version of “Hurt” will be hauntingly familiar to longtime fans of his father.

His father’s presence can be felt throughout the 17-track album, including on “Poor Boy & the Captain’s Daughter,” whose melody was added by John Cash to lyrics written by Johnny when he was in his early 20s. But the project is also a defining moment for John Cash, who spent more than 10 years putting it together.

“It is a journey of self-realization. But it is a journey through 10 years of my life. A lot has happened since the beginning of it, and I’ve met a lot of friends along the way,” Cash says.

Many of those friends, including wife Ana Christina, Tony Rice, Ira Dean, Ronnie and Rob McCoury, make contributions to the album. It is an amazingly diverse project, bouncing around from folk to gospel to country, a testament to Cash’s work as a producer in many genres.

“Someone will tell me, ‘I really don’t like that song.’ And I just tell them, ‘You’ll like something on there,’” Cash says with a laugh. “I like so many kinds of music, and I work with so many kinds of music as a producer. When you work in 14 different genres, I find myself writing in those genres.”

Cash has been a producer for more than 25 years and has won six Grammy Awards. He has worked on projects by a who’s who in the world of music: Elvis Costello, Chris Cornell, Alison Krauss, Loretta Lynn, Rodney Crowell, John Prine, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Sheryl Crow, Kris Kristofferson, George Jones, and many others. Several of those he worked with in the past, including the now-deceased Cornell, cut tracks on a second Cash project, Johnny Cash: Forever Words.

For Forever Words, Cash dug through more than 2,000 pages of his father’s poems and letters that had never been published before. Cash then asked artists to create songs from the unearthed treasures. Cornell, who was the front man for Soundgarden before dying on May 18, cut “You Never Knew My Mind,” a gravelly, mournful interpretation of songs Johnny wrote during his divorce from Vivian in 1967. 

The research involved in making the Forever Words project gave Cash a fresh appreciation of his father.

“I was 33 when my father passed away. I’m 48 now. I’m seeing life, in essence, through a different pair of glasses now. There was a lot of depth to his character, a lot of mystery, but there was still a simple truth and faith that made up who he was,” Cash says. “He also had a great big hole. He lost his brother [Jack] when he was a young boy. The pain and the struggle, the addiction, a lot of that stems from that loss and hardship. There was so much to Dad.”

Forever Words was a labor of love and a tribute to his father, but We Must Believe in Magic, dedicated to June Carter Cash and producer Jack Clement, is Cash’s own personal journey and an impressive display of songwriting. Cash has a writing credit on 13 of the 17 tracks. He wrote “Dragon Song” and “The Dungeon” when he was in his early 20s and was just waiting for the right project to release them. He wrote three or four songs with his father that were released on other projects, but their writing styles are widely different.

“I appreciate his writing a whole lot more now than I did then. I think I took it for granted. He had a simplicity. That is something I’m still working on, trying to say a thought in a simpler way,” Cash says, laughing.

In addition to finally being satisfied with the 17 tracks on We Must Believe in Magic, Cash’s other motivation for releasing the album now was to coincide with “Record Store Day,” which was April 21. In an era of streaming and buying singles, Cash is still a big fan of complete albums, particularly vinyl albums.

“The thing with streaming is that people will listen to 40 songs, but they’ll pick five bands they love and buy the album so they can hold it in their hands and get closer to the music,” Cash says. “People say streaming is the way to go, but I look at the numbers, and I see vinyl coming back. In the end, the best music will always rise to the top.”

Contact Brian Dugger at bdugger@theblade.com or on Twitter @DuggerBlade.

First Published April 26, 2018, 11:41 p.m.