Johnny Cash

Before he died of complications from diabetes in 2003, Cash recorded upwards of 60 LPs for Columbia's Nashville division between 1958 and 1982 as well as many tracks for Sun, three Mercury albums, and eight CDs worth of material for Rubin. As his mystique has grown, so has the listenability of his catalogue, much of it now reissued or repackaged. Yet though it has no Rubin stuff. this supplants 1990's Essential Johnny Cash as a definitive introduction. Its risky strategy of devoting an entire disc to folk songs, half hootenanny and half campfire sing, and another to collaborations with the likes of Dylan, Ray Charles, U2, Elvis Costello, Waylon Jennings, Rosanne Cash, and especially the Carter Family, finds good songs and fits them together. Even the eight previously unreleaseds blend in; "Doin' My Time" and "You Can't Beat Jesus Christ" shine. (Grade - *****)