INCLUDES 4 BONUS TRACKS

Available again on vinyl, this collector’s edition includes one of Cash’s finest albums, The Fabulous Johnny Cash, plus 4 bonus tracks from the same period. The LP marked his first recording for Columbia Records. It was released in January of 1959 and contains a handful of excellent songs. From the first guitar lick in “Run Softly, Blue River”, you immediately know that this is an unmistakable Johnny Cash release. In the song, a man wishes for his marriage with his wife to run as smoothly as the river that sits close by their home. “Frankie’s Man, Johnny” (about a girl and her “long-legged, guitar pickin’ man” who tries to two-time her but falls into the trap of his sister-in-law who was checking up on him) is a funny tale stressing the album’s ‘lighter’ side, as are the jocular “Pickin’ Time” and the rather silly gospel-tinged “The Troubadour”. “That's All Over” an up-tempo ballad, is about a man who overcame the grief he suffered after his lover left him. Finding another girl that would make him feel happy for the rest of his life was the only good thing he thought could happen to him, and once it did he forgot all about his past full of nothing but heartache. “One More Ride”, a song about the urge to keep taking rides on a train, makes you want to kick up your heels and cut loose on the dance floor as you listen to such lyrics as, “I miss the gloom of the prairie moon, that seemed to know my name, and the tumbleweed where the prairie dogs feed, I miss them just the same. They're all a part of a song of heart I'm saying”. As is so often the case, Cash is at his best when he tackles the less bright side of life: “I Still Miss Someone” is a pretty ballad about loneliness, while the foreboding, climax-directed “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” marks one of his most famous tunes.

The Fabulous Johnny Cash is a transitional effort that hints at the various styles Cash would pursue during the next decade or so: religious hymns, hardcore country, and other pastoral songs. Instead of recording this music for his last Sun sessions, he wound up saving much of his best material for his Columbia album, and that's what makes it so consistent. The album builds on his basic, spare sound, but it is slightly more polished than his Sun records.

PERSONNEL:

JOHNNY CASH, lead vocals and guitar, plus:

Luther Perkins (electric guitar)
Don Helms (steel-guitar)
Marshall Grant (bass)
Marvin Hughes (piano)
Morris Palmer, Buddy Harman (drums)
The Jordanaires (backing vocals).

Recorded at Bradley Film & Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee,
between July 24 and August 13, 1958.
Original recordings produced by Don Law.

Except “The Ballad of Boot Hill”:
Luther Perkins (electric guitar)
Johnny Western (guitar and vocals)
Marshall Grant (bass)
James Carter Wilson (piano)
Michael Kazak (drums)
The Anita Kerr Singers (backing vocals).

Produced by Don Law. Recorded by Seth Foster at Bradley Film & Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee, on August 14, 1959.

SIDE 1
01. RUN SOFTLY, BLUE RIVER
02. FRANKIE AND JOHNNY
03. THAT'S ALL OVER
04. THE TROUBADOUR
05. ONE MORE RIDE
06. THAT'S ENOUGH
07. THE BALLAD OF BOOT HILL (*)
08. OH, WHAT A DREAM (*)

SIDE 2
01. I STILL MISS SOMEONE
02. DON’T TAKE YOUR GUNS TO TOWN
03. I’D RATHER DIE YOUNG
04. PICKIN' TIME
05. SHEPHERD OF MY HEART (*)
06. SUPPER-TIME (*)

(*) BONUS TRACKS