Massive 63 CD Johnny Cash Box Set Set For Release

The set will include 35 albums released on cd for the first time by Columbia/Legacy in the U.S., the first 19 albums (1958-1967) released for first time in Mono on CD in the U.S. and will be loaded with rarities as well as new compilations. Legacy sent over the following details:

Released in the year in which Cash would have turned 80 (born February 26, 1932), Johnny Cash � The Complete Columbia Album Collection is a monumental tribute to the original Man In Black. Working with Columbia producers Don Law (1958-67), Frank Jones (1960-67), Bob Johnston (1968-70), Larry Butler (1972-78), Charlie Bragg (1972-77), Brian Ahern, Billy Sherrill, Chips Moman, and others, Cash was always in command of his direction, whether it was country & western, gospel, blues, rockabilly, traditional balladry and folk, or any other style he chose to pursue.

The new box set was compiled by multi-Grammy Award-nominated producer Gregg Geller and multi-Grammy and W.C. Handy Award-winning producer Steve Berkowitz, who have supervised Legacy's historic Johnny Cash reissue program for over a decade.

Willie Nelson, who took part in April's "We Walk the Line: A Celebration of the Music of Johnny Cash" concert in Austin (available on DVD and Blu-ray from Legacy), had this to say about Cash at the event: "I always looked at John as somebody who had been there before me and who was doing it the way he wanted to do it. I always admired and respected him for doing that − he was one of the first rebels, one of the first outlaws (if you want to call him that) that hit Nashville and I was a great fan of his not only for his music but for his attitude."

The box set begins with The Fabulous Johnny Cash, his Columbia debut LP recorded and released in 1958, with his first #1 country single at Columbia, "Don't Take Your Guns To Town." It wraps up in 1990 (though Cash actually left Columbia in 1983) with Highwayman 2, the second Columbia album by the quartet of Johnny, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson, featuring the Top 25 country hit, "Silver Stallion."

In between, a total of 35 album titles are being released for the first time on CD by Columbia/Legacy in the U.S. And the first 19 chronological titles (dating from 1958 to 1967) are being released for the first time in monaural (mono) sound on CD by Columbia/Legacy in the U.S. Each title is packaged as a mini-LP CD with its original artwork, including the five original gatefold albums in Cash's Columbia discography.

The Complete Columbia Album Collection is accompanied by a full-color booklet that includes complete discographic information for every album: songwriters, recording dates and cities, musicians, guest performers, producers, release dates, original catalog numbers, Billboard pop and country chart numbers for albums and single tracks, and more.

The booklet also features liner notes by veteran annotator Rich Kienzle, who references many of the Columbia albums along the way. "When one thinks of Johnny Cash's recordings, one thing is certain," Kienzle writes. "The Columbia years loom larger than any other phase. A star when he arrived in 1958, when he departed he was an American icon."

Complementing the Columbia albums, the producers have assembled two new compilations for this box set:

Johnny Cash With His Hot & Blue Guitar, a 28-song collection of single and non-single tracks released during his Sun Records years (1954-58), including "Hey Porter," "Folsom Prison Blues," "I Walk The Line," "Cry! Cry! Cry!," "Ballad Of A Teenage Queen," "Big River," and more; actually an expanded edition of his 1957 Sun LP, bearing that album's iconic cover design; and

The Singles, Plus, a 2-CD, 55-song collection (spanning 1958-85) of single sides that did not originally appear on Johnny's Columbia albums, 'plus' guest performances on other artists' albums, among them Bob Dylan, The Carter Family, Mother Maybelle Carter, June Carter Cash, The Earl Scruggs Revue, Marty Robbins, Willie Nelson, and Shel Silverstein.

There are several rarities and Johnny Cash catalog anomalies to be found throughout The Complete Columbia Album Collection. Chief among these are three live albums (out of the eight live albums in the box set):

Johnny Cash pa Osteraker, recorded at Osteraker Prison in Sweden in 1972, released in Europe in 1973, and later added to the U.S. catalog;

Strawberry Cake, recorded at the Palladium in London in 1975, and released in 1976, named for the Cash-composed single track that appeared on this album; and

Koncert V Praze, recorded at the Sport Hall in Prague in 1978, released on the Czech Supraphon label in 1983, now officially joining the U.S. catalog.

Among the other rarities in The Complete Columbia Album Collection are two original motion picture soundtrack albums, both produced in Nashville in 1970 by Bob Johnston, who also served as Columbia staff producer (at the time) of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Flatt & Scruggs, The Byrds, and others:

I Walk the Line, directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Gregory Peck as a smalltown Tennessee sheriff, the soundtrack comprised entirely of Johnny Cash songs, featuring his final self-penned #1 country single, "Flesh and Blood"; and

Little Fauss And Big Halsy, the motorcycle racing movie starring Robert Redford, Lauren Hutton and Michael J. Pollard, with a soundtrack mixing vocal and instrumental tunes by Cash and Carl Perkins.

"Johnny Cash and Columbia Records were joined at the hip for 28 years," Kienzle writes, "or nearly 60 percent of his 48-year recording career that began in early 1955 when he did his first formal session for Sun Records in Memphis, continuing until just before he died in 2003. Cash staked his claim and established himself at Sun; at Columbia, he defined himself for all time."