Gospel music is the best form of apologetics ever, the closest I ever come to Belief is listening to, say, Mahalia Jackson or Rev. Cleophus Robinson. I don't know why George Pell doesn't just get up there of a Sunday, press play on a Soul Stirrers compilation and be done with it. You ain't gonna top that, padre.

The title of Johnny Cash's My Mother's Hymn Book is not just poetic, it is literally a collection of songs from Carrie Cash's much loved hymnal. That's it he's holding on the front cover. An acoustic collection of surpassing beauty and substance, Johnny described this album as the favourite of his ever. Included is "I Am Bound for the Promised Land" which Carrie Cash sang to her children as they made the arduous journey in 1935 from Johnny's birthplace in Kingsland to the New Deal settlement of Dyess. The overgrown patch of scrub was not the promised land perhaps, but represented for Ray Cash at least a shot at least at self-sufficiency and dignity after years of precarious Depression living for his family.

It is available as part of the Unearthed box set or seperately.