Veteran rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash are to get the Johnny Cash treatment by recording an album of covers with Rick Rubin.

Rubin helped Cash reinvent himself toward the end of his career, culminating in American IV: The Man Comes Around, which is regarded as one of his best albums.

There’s no doubt that Rubin – fresh from the new Metallica album – will reinvigorate the band and produce a blinder of an album. He’s definitely the go-to guy for any band looking to revitalise their music.

The as yet untitled covers album is expected to be recorded in the new year with the intention of releasing it later in 2009. It’ll be the band’s first album since 1994’s After The Storm. Apparently they have a shortlist of 20 sogns, culled from a list of 60.

According to Billboard, that’s just the tip of the musical iceberg, and there are lots of CSNY goodies due out soon, not least the release of the Deja Vu documentary which follows the band on their 2006 Freedom Of Speech tour.

Graham Nash has recently said:

You fall back in love with the reason why you wanted to play with Neil Young in the first place, the reason why you wanted to play with Stephen Stills in the first place, and with Crosby in the first place,” Nash explains. “You go, ‘…I remember all this sh*t. That’s what we were trying to concentrate on.’ It’s very interesting, very enlightening.

Exciting stuff for fans of the band. We can’t wait for the track listing, and will post it here when we get more information.