Search - Johnny Cash :: Original Sun Sound of Johnny Cash

Final Sun LP surveys Cash's years on the label

hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 12/20/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Sun's cottage industry of Johnny Cash albums wrapped up its original run in 1965 with this collection. Cash himself had left for Columbia several years earlier, but the vault full of material he'd left behind provided the basis of several "posthumous" albums. The original twelve tracks of this collection span his entire run at Sun, from 1955 takes of Cash's Hank Williams-esque "Wide Open Road" and Hank Snow's "Two Timing Woman" through tracks recorded in the Spring and Summer of 1958.The collection's title is a tad ironic, given the overdubbing to which several of these tracks were subjected. Cash's true "original" Sun sound was a sparse wonder, with Cash's huge baritone standing starkly between the rhythmic accompaniment of the Tennessee Two. In an attempt to groom Cash for radio play, several tracks, such as a "Thanks a Lot" and "Born to Lose," were prettied-up with vocal choruses, drums and piano. The additions do little more than distract from Cash's voice and Luther Perkins' trademark tic-tac guitar. More successful approaches to fleshing out the Tennessee Two are the original session additions of piano and gentle drumming to tracks like Sam Phillips "The Story of a Broken Heart."The best known of this set is Cash's "Big River," a B-side (to "Ballad of a Teenage Queen"!) that made it to #4, and became an indelible part of Cash's live show. The rest of the song list is wonderfully less familiar. Cash's pen contributes the train-rhythm homage to his rural roots, "Country Boy," the bible-themed "Belshazah," and the aforementioned "Wide Open Road." The latter includes unusual (for Cash recordings) slide guitar, and appears in a friskier (and slide guitar-less) version among the bonus tracks.Varese's reissue adds six bonus tracks to the original dozen, including alternate takes or undubbed masters of "Big River," "Born to Lose" and "Get Rhythm." The latter is a particularly interesting recording of Cash isolated with his guitar, laid down before the band's mics were balanced for the well-known hit. The album concludes with a ripping (but, sadly, incomplete) rockabilly-paced cover of the Sons of the Pioneers' "One More Ride." Of all the albums Sun issued on Johnny Cash after he departed for Columbia, this one is the least "album like." The songs form more of a grab bag than a flow. This actually makes sense as a capstone to Sun's original run of Cash issues. The broad survey of his time on Sun necessarily captures more styles and shows off different points in his maturity as a recording artist. The list of songs not over-anthologized on other Cash Sun collections is a real plus, as there's great material here will be less familiar to listeners. Unless you're planning to spring for a complete Sun anthology, Varese's series of LP reissues is a superb way to expand your collection beyond the well traversed hits."