Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash with His Hot & Blue Guitar! - (180 gram vinyl, 45 RPM, Mono Deluxe Edition)

Recorded for the vaunted Sun Records label and originally released in 1957, this 12-cut record contains several cuts that would go on to become Cash standards, like the cheat-the-man story that's told during "The Rock Island Line" where the song picks up speed just as the train that Cash is singing about does. Another song involving a train, "I Heard That Lonesome Whistle," is set to a completely different tempo; the song is slow and mournful as Cash sings of a man who's missing his baby because he's in the slammer, apparently for life. "Country Boy" is a mid-tempo number with a bit of a tricky lyric and a quick bit of twang from guitarist Luther Perkins. Also included on Side 1 are "If the Good Lord's Willing," the twang fest of "Cry, Cry, Cry" and "Remember Me." Side 2 kicks off with "So Doggone Lonesome" which moves into the gospel cut "I Was There When It Happened" but the meat of the album is found here too: the ever-popular "I Walk the Line" and the longtime favorite "Folsom Prison Blues." Rounding out the side are "The Wreck of Old '97" and closing cut "Doin' My Time." Clearly this album functions as a historical document but more casually it's just a whole lot of fun to hear Cash developing his sound. An insert features a new essay by Colin Escott who notes that while Cash is smiling in the album's cover photo, he would not smile on a cover shot again for more than 20 years. The album is cut to vinyl from master tapes for the first time in decades.

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