The Baron

Reissue history of The Baron:
1. Reissued for download by Columbia/Legacy in April of 2010.
2. Reissued in the Columbia box set, disc 51, in 2012.

The Baron Sessions:
Recorded between September of 1980 and March of 1981. I Will Dance With You (recorded 9/5/1980) was not included on the album but was used as the B-side to The Baron single release. Known outtakes from the sessions are: Blessing in Disguise (recorded 3/16/1981), Billy Brown (recorded 3/16/1981), New Cut Road (recorded 3/18/1981), Don't You Think It's Come Our Time (recorded 3/18/1981), Tennessee (recorded 3/18/1981) and Why Am I Thinking Of You (recorded 3/19/1981). Cash returned to New Cut Road during the sessions for "Johnny 99", where it was included, but this earlier version (as well as the other outtakes) have not been released anywhere.

From the way he described it in his 1997 autobiography, The Baron certainly wasn't an album Cash cared for much:

"...Periodically, someone took the initiative and suggested something new or different to turn the situation around, but nothing ever worked. The Baron, my 1981 album with Billy Sherrill producing was like that ... by the time I got to him and he got to me, we were both pretty cynical. I remember going into his office and seeing a big cardboard box full of tapes - songs submitted for my album by songwriters and publishers - and saying 'well, what have we got?'. He didn't even look at me. 'Absolutely nothing', he said and kicked the box over so the tapes, several hundred of them, spilled onto the floor. 'Isn't it about time for you to record 'My Elusive Dream, everyone else has'. And so it went. We tried, sort of, but we certainly didn't give it our best. The Baron flopped and the situation between me and CBS deteriorated..." (Cash - An Autobiography, page 339-340)

Yet "The Baron" was promoted extensively in concert - Cash even made a music video featuring Marty Stuart, June Carter and himself to show on a screen behind the stage when he performed the song in concert, which he did at most shows from the spring of 1981 and well into 1982 (the song was performed live regularly as late as 1984, which far longer than many of his other albums fared). However, Cash did eventually record My Elusive Dream - with Billy Sherrill producing - for the unreleased "In Living Color" album.