Johnny Cash - The Legend of Johnny Cash
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Free Music Notes for The Legend of Johnny Cash
Free Music Review: Great Compilation of Entire Career! Great CD to Buy First for New Cash Fans!
Hit: 5 Stars
This CD is a great compilation of many of Johnny Cash's biggest songs, from 1955-2003, spanning virtually his entire career, and since this came out recently, I presume that it probably is technically more refined than CD collections released years or decades earlier.
The only thing that I see missing is that there are no Gospel songs, though Johnny recorded and released Gospel songs and albums. I would recommend buying GOSPEL GLORY to fill in a good chunk of his Gospel works, affordably priced.
THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY CASH comes with a nice, b/w CD booklet, with many photos and some text which talks about his career. I found this all to be very interesting.
The CD cover, under the CD, shows a big photo of Johnny flipping his middle finger at the photographer, so be careful. This was actually taken and used for his 1969 live album, JOHNNY CASH AT SAN QUENTIN (which I also recommend highly). Apparently, Johnny was having trouble with the BBC TV crew filming the concert, getting between him and the audience seeing each other, so he got mad, and this photo was taken.
This has many of his most famous songs, so it is great to have if this is someone's first Johnny Cash CD. You will get "Folsom Prison Blues," "I Walk the Line," "Ring of Fire," "A Boy Named Sue," "One Piece at a Time," and many other good, but less famous songs.
I can also recommend that you pick up the affordably priced JOHNNY CASH READS THE COMPLETE NEW TESTAMENT, a 16 CD set for around $30. This is very fun to listen to Johnny's great spoken word project.
If you liked the WALK THE LINE movie, then the CD of JOHNNY CASH AT FOLSOM PRISON is a great live album that was part of the film, and the movie's soundtrack is also a very good tribute to Johnny's songs, and some of the performances rival the original Johnny Cash versions of some the lesser known songs.
Free Music Review: I hear the train a'coming
Hit: 5 Stars
I admit it. I'm a recent Johnny Cash convert, inspired in part by the recent Hollywood handling of the big man's life. But the late arrival does not diminish my appreciation for the stylings of Cash's music and the rolling thunder voice in which they are delivered.
Cash sings of hard drinking, hard times and hard women. For younger listeners, the sound is one that evokes baritone memories of Christmas parties with drunken uncles doing their best to mimic Cash's cavernous voice. For the older lot, Cash recalls a time when men were men and women were mainly the pillars of sanity that guided them from the path of ruin.
"The Legend of Johnny Cash" is ideal for either group, for new fans or for old ones. It contains a compilation of nearly two dozen songs precisely representative of Cash's work. Even the sad songs will inspire you to tapping the steering wheel and bellowing along on a long drive. The music and lyrics inspire daydreams of dusty roads and smoky bars, where fighting men brood over beers.
Cash's genius was that he never tried to rise beyond the world with which he was familiar. He found what worked and stuck with it, singing of Sunday mornings in melancholy notes or in toe-tapping rhythm of shoeshine boys with pearls of wisdom.
I should also acknowledge that I typically eschew country music in any form. The power of Cash's work is such that it transcends even that kind of years worn discrimination, making this CD perfect for just about anybody who sings in the shower or at the top of his lungs on the drive to work.
Some highlights: Cry, Cry, Cry; Folsom Prison Blues; Walk the Line; Get a Rhythm; Big River; Ring of Fire; Jackson; Man in Black; Sunday Morning Coming Down; Highwayman. Twenty songs in all.
Free Music Review: Bigger than life
Hit: 5 Stars
It has been said that if Mt. Rushmore could sing, it would sound like Johnny Cash. He was a living legend, and his status has only grown even greater since his passing. This latest compilation CD is perhaps the most definitive single disc in terms of spanning his career.
From Sun to Columbia to U2 and American Recordings, you get a decent sampling of some of Johnny's finest. It's pretty much the history of American music in the 20th Century...everything from folk, country, blues, soul, rock, patriotic Americana, gospel, novelty...songs from the mountains and the plains and the factories and the fields and the rivers and all points in between.
Johnny could (and did) take any song and make it his. His voice was that of Everyman, a little battered, a little bruised, a little sad, a little mad, a little bent...but never broken, never quitting, mostly hopeful, and oftentimes smiling that crooked smile.
This CD does a masterful job of encompassing all of that, with well-known classics like "I Walk the Line," "Folsom Prison Blues," and "Boy Named Sue," plus the epic "Highwayman" with Waylon, Willie, and Kris and the quirky "Wanderer" with U2. You also get a taste of Johnny's masterful American Recordings era produced by Rick Rubin. For instance, "I've Been Everywhere" with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is good rocking fun and "Hurt" plumbs the depths of pain and redemption.
This single CD set serves as a nice little hors d'ouevre for more expansive collections, such as THE LEGEND boxset, the American Recordings UNEARTHED set, the 20th Century Masters single disc (Mercury years) and the new SUN collection.
Free Music Review: An Absolutely Amazing Disc
Hit: 5 Stars
First off, let me start off by saying that I am not a country music person whatsoever. And for the longest time, I thought that Johnny Cash was just another country musician. That all changed Christmas Day of 2005 when I was over my dad's friend's house playing Rummy with the gang, his friend put in his Legend of Johnny Cash CD, and the more I listened to the music, the more blown away I was. From the opening lines of "Cry, Cry, Cry" all the way to the closing lines of "Hurt", every song has meaning behind it. A week later, I ended up picking this CD up for myself, and the rest is history.
I can't believe it took me all this time to realize what a lyrical genius Cash truly was, and that he was unlike others of his time. Trust me, this is coming from someone who is an appreciator of all things heavy metal for the most part. Anyway, some of his best songs can be found on this album, including "Ring of Fire", which I absolutely love. Along with that, there is one track that is truly powerful and can penetrate to the core. That track is "The Wanderer", which also happened to feature U2, I am so glad they put that track on this compilation. It's truly a beautiful song, and one of Johnny's best works in my books.
So my summary is this, if you love good lyrics, good music, and are willing to try something out of the ordinary, try this album out for size. It truly is a work of art, and finally does Cash justice. May the Man in Black rest in peace knowing that he's still loved by thousands of his fans, including me, a man who did not realize what a genius he was until after his death. Thank you Mr. Cash for the memories.
Free Music Review: The Music Behind the Man.
Hit: 5 Stars
Johnny Cash wasn't just a great country musician. He was a legend of music. Cash arrived on the music scene around the same time as Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. Rock and Roll was in its infancy and Cash entered into the scene at the right time. Cash's had a magnificent baritone voice and could play a standard acoustic guitar with the best. He started off singing folksy rock and roll, but by the end of his life was best known as a country artist. However, Cash never really fit into any of those genres. He sung and wrote songs that ran a rampant of musical genres from rock and roll, country, pop, gospel, and folk. Cash had a style and tune all of his own. He related best to the common people and his music reflected that. People loved him for it. At the same time, musicians knew that Cash was much more than a good ole boy done good. Musicians know that Cash was a musical genius and his style influenced artists as diverse from U2 to Kris Kristofferson to Nine Inch Nails. Johnny Cash was a legend and THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY CASH captures that. Some of Cash's most famous tunes are included on this album, e.g. "Folsom Prison Blues", "Ring of Fire", and "Man in Black". Also included are songs he sang with wife June Carter ("Jackson") and songs that illustrate the genius of Cash, "Highwayman", "The Wanderer", "Rusty Cage", and "Hurt". There really aren't any terrible Johnny Cash albums, but if a person can only own one album that illustrates the breadth and depth of the musical talents of Cash, THE LEGEND OF JOHNNY CASH is the album to own.