On 22 July 2006, Johnny Cash topped the Billboard 200 with American V: A Hundred Highways, his first album to reach No. 1 on the all-genre chart since At San Quentin in 1969, and his first solo record to top the country chart in more than three decades. The milestone marked a remarkable late-career revival for Cash, who by the early 1990s had fallen out of favour with the music industry, playing dinner theatres and Branson residencies while embroiled in a dispute with his label, Polygram. He did not live to witness the album's success, having died in 2003.

The turnaround began in February 1993, when producer Rick Rubin approached Cash after a show in Santa Ana, California, proposing simply that he record whatever songs he wished. This led to a deal with American Recordings and a celebrated five-album series: American Recordings (1994), which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album; Unchained (1996) with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which won Best Country Album; American III: Solitary Man (2000); American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), featuring his acclaimed cover of "Hurt"; and finally American V: A Hundred Highways, released posthumously in 2006, whose video for "God's Gonna Cut You Down" later won a Grammy.