VH1 Storytellers is the 83rd overall album and is a live album by Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, released in 1998 (see 1998 in music) on American Recordings. The album was produced by Rick Rubin and was the third record released as part of Cash's ten-year period of collaboration with Rubin. It is not, however, counted as part of the American Recordings series, which is reserved for Cash's studio work with Rubin.
Cash and Nelson take turns on songs associated with each respective artist, usually with the other performing harmony or occasionally verses. The opening track is a duet with Cash and Nelson, and some tracks feature guitar solos by Nelson. Between tracks, Cash and Nelson joke with each other and discuss the songs and their origins.
This was the final album of new performances released by Cash prior to the onset of health problems that forced him to curtail live concerts, and which also led to changes in the timbre of his voice noticeable from American III: Solitary Man (his next album release of new recordings issued in 2000) onwards. It was also Cash's final purpose-recorded live album to be released during his lifetime, though an archival recording, Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden, recorded in 1969, would be issued a year before his death.
