Amazon.co.uk Review: Every home should have a Johnny Cash compilation. Cash is a genuine titan of popular music, whose finest work should be as venerated as anything by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, David Bowie or Brian Wilson, and this collection does as good a job of beginning to explain why as any. The virtue of Cash's music is its simplicity. His brutally reductive take on country, set to his distinctive boom-chicka-boom backbeat, directs all of the listener's attention to his supernaturally world-weary voice (even as a teenager, Cash sounded about a thousand years old). This collection is a judicious mix of covers (Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" among them) and original Cash standards. That the producers of this record have a genuine empathy with their subject is confirmed by their inclusion of a live version of the triumphantly nihilist "Folsom Prison Blues" (once identified by Ice-T, no less, as a progenitor of gangsta rap) taped at one of Cash's famous prison concerts . The cheers that greet the line "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" are the eeriest confirmation of credibility by an audience upon a performer ever recorded. --Andrew Mueller
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Does whats asked of it
If you're like myself and have specific musical genre to call your own and prefer to have a plethora of different styles and sounds this is a great album to purchase. It will fit nicely in to your CD collection and contains some truly magnificent songs that will provide hours of enjoyment.
If however you are a fan of Mr Cash you will do better buying some of his earlier albums. Yes you might have to buy more (but you are a fan?) but you will appreciate the passion in a younger cash singing. ... Read More
Rating: - Rerecorded hell!
This is a re-record from 1998-ish. I own it - I was on holiday and in desperate need of some Johnny when I bought it. Unfortunately this is rubbish. Spend your money elsewhere. There are much better albums out there with the original recordings!
Rating: - Not the real thing
Most, if not all, of the four reviews already on this page, and the Amazon review itself, are mislocated or confuse this album (Spectrum 554 383-2) with another similar one (notice how the reviewers refer to tracks that are not, in fact, in this listing!). This particular album is not the original recordings, but one of those studio remakes from decades later, probably 1998 so far as can be told from the cover notes. Johnny sounds tired (how many times must he have sung 'Ring of Fire' before he came to ... Read More
Rating: - Blue collar hero
This single CD contains the best of Johnny Cash prior to his resurgence in the late 90s in collaboration with producer Rick Rubin and is difficult to fault with regards to content. All of the absolutely essential classics are included such a I Walk The Line, Ring Of Fire and a duet of Jackson with his enduring soulmate and second wife June Carter.
Cash was one of the few artists who was successfully considered a "man of the people" throughout his career. Tellingly for such a blue-collar hero, ... Read More
Rating: - I'm a beginner!
Having just seen the new Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line, and marvelled at Joaquin Phoenix's wonderful performances as the man in black, I just had to check out the real man's work.
And this was probably the best place for a beginner to start. It includes all his famous songs - Ring of Fire, Walk the Line - plus a couple I hadn't heard before - Sue - and also included my personal favourite, Jackson.
In fact, the only thing I wanted more of out of this best of collection, was more duets ... Read More
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