Smithers

I'v only heard At Folsom Prison and I liked it, I also stumbled upon his new song on the radio and I enjoyed that.

I want to know his best albums, I usually don't need help when getting into new artists but he has such a huge catalouge plus the sources I'm looking at seem unreliable because I want the Folsom Johnny Cash and not some old fashioned sounding country music (forgive me if I'm being ignorant).

DVD Josh

I am not a country music fan, but I am a Johnny Cash fan. After seeing Walk the Line, I picked up the two disc Essential Johnny Cash Collection set. It has every hit (including the seminal live performances of FPB and Boy Named Sue) and a good sampling of some of his gospel stuff and later material with June. I don't own any other album and never felt a real need to because of the Essential collection.

Mr. Salty

"American Recordings" and "American IV: The Man Comes Around" are excellent examples of his later wirk with producer Rick Rubin. His new album, "American V: A Hundred Highways," is my favorite album of the year so far.

Tscott

If you like Live at Folsom Prison, get Live at San Quentin for sure.

There's a new compilation, The Legend of Johnny Cash, that's spans his whole career. If you buy only one Johnny Cash CD, this is the one to get.

If you want some of his later American Recording albums instead of a compilation, you can't got wrong with any of the first four: American Recordings, Unchained, Solitary Man and When the Man Comes Around. The fifth is great too, but I'd recommend starting with any of the others before that one.

JasonF

It's a great CD and the only Cash CD I own, but it does have some notable omissions like "I've Been Everywhere" and his recent stuff with Rick Rubin like "When the Man Comes Around." Still, dollar for dollar, it's got to be the best Cash for your cash.

DVD Josh

I don't know if you can really say that they are "missing". Those are not Columbia songs, which era the Essential collection covers.

JasonF

That's not entirely true; the collection includes Cash's rendition of the Wanderer with Bono, which was on U2's Zooropa album. Zooropa was on Island and Cash was on Mercury at that time; both are Universal labels. Plus, some of the stuff on the collection was recorded for Sun -- although I don't know that much Cash history; it's possible he re-recorded the songs while he was on Columbia and it's possible that the rights to that stuff moved from Sun to Columbia at some point.

I'm just nitpicking, though. Cash's rendition of "I've Been Everywhere" is a personal favorite of mine, and I wish it were on Essential, but I can't think of a single track you'd be able to unequivocally bump in its favor. Likewise for the Rick Rubin stuff (which is on Rubin's American label, which is a Warner label).

DrRingDing

If you like Folsom, then you'll find that you'll like all of his albums, probably.

Outside of his later work with Rick Rubin, I don't think Cash's songs really differed that much in style - that is to say, you won't find his music to be overly "country", no matter which era its from. If you decide that you need to branch out into Hank Williams or Willie Nelson, well... that's a different story.

Of course, that's just, like, my opinion, man!
-ringding-

DVD Josh

Thanks for the background info. I guess for me, I always thought of the Columbia era and American eras as two different Johnny Cash's.

JasonF

There were really four Cash eras:

1) Cash was at Sun from 1955 to 1958. Sun kept releasing stuff he recorded while he was there throughout the sixties. Sun was and is independent.

2) From 1958 until 1986, he was at Columbia. This is obviously the bulk of his career. Columbia re-released some of his Sun songs, but like I mentioned, I'm not sure exactly how that worked (in terms of the rights). Columbia was its own label at the time and is now part of the Sony/BMG family.

3) From 1987 until 1990, he was at Mercury. He did four albums worth of new material and re-recorded a lot of old stuff. Mercury is part of the Universal family.

4) From 1990 until his death (and beyond) he was with American. American is Rick Rubin's label and is part of the Warner Music Group.

If you count Columbia as Sony/BMG, Cash recorded for three of the current Big Four labels (missing only EMI).

DVD Josh

Awesome, thanks.

What's interesting to me is in the movie, they show FPB as the song that swayed Sun to sign him, when it was actually Cry, Cry, Cry, although it apparently is true that the rest of his band actually had not heard the song before he played it at the audition and improvised throughout.