Johnny Cash American

Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, musician and author, born February 26, 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas, USA as J.R. Cash…

Johnny Cash's populist fusion of folk, country, and gospel done up with an unhurried, plainspoken eloquence made him both a country icon and an American treasure. Whether singing his own songs or covering songs written by young alternative rockers in his autumn years, anything he touched became vintage Johnny Cash as soon as he stepped to the microphone. This collection includes the classics "I Walk the Line" and "Big River" as well as Cash's fine version of Bob Dylan's "Wanted Man," but it lacks essentials like "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues," and ends up being a little hit or miss, but – as they say – any Johnny Cash beats no Johnny Cash at all.

You've got to be a Johnny Cash fan to truly appreciate what's happening on the third volume in Legacy's Bootleg series Live Around the World. This double-disc collection contains 53 tracks culled from 23 years, 1956 to 1979. The heart of its performances are from the Newport Folk Festival in 1964; a show for the troops in Long Binh, Vietnam in 1969; for Richard Nixon at the White House in 1970, and at the Osteraker Prison in Sweden in 1972…

Tribute albums frequently betray their subject, but not this homage to Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears, the country giant’s 1964 salute to Native Americans. A concept album about a discomfiting cause – the US’s treatment of its indigenous people – Tears was a radical statement resisted, to Cash’s fury, by the Nashville establishment. For its 50th anniversary, producer Joe Henry gathers a stellar house band that takes turns to lead. Gillian Welch delivers an entrancing As Long As the Grass Shall Grow; Emmylou does likewise with Apache Tears. Steve Earle drawls: “I ain’t no fan of Custer” and instrumentals evoke North America’s haunted plains. Very fine.