"The Night Hank Williams Came to Town" Released: March 1987
"Sixteen Tons" Released: June 1987
"Let Him Roll" Released: September 1987
"W. Lee O'Daniel (And the Light Crust Dough Boys)" Released: November 1987
Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town is the 73rd album by Americancountry singer Johnny Cash, released in 1987, and his first for Mercury Records. It was re-released in 2003, paired with Boom Chicka Boom on a single CD. "Sixteen Tons" was previously a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, "The Big Light" is an Elvis Costello song from his album King of America, released the previous year and "Let Him Roll" is from Guy Clark's debut, Old No. 1. The album reached #36 on the country charts, while the only released single, "The Night Hank Williams Came to Town", peaked at #43.[2]
"Ballad of Barbara" is a rerecording of a track that had been a hit single for Cash in the early 1970s. A number of tracks left over from the album's recording sessions would later surface on Cash's final Mercury album, The Mystery of Life, released in 1991.
^C. Eric Banister -Johnny Cash FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Man in Black 1617136085 2014 "“Sixteen Tons,” written by Merle Travis, fits, as one would expect, like a coal miner's glove, while “Letters from Home,” by Jack Wesley Routh and John Charles Crowley, finds Cash in a sentimental mood."