America likes its heroes to bleed of-the-dirt "authenticity"-- to carry a bible and have spent time in jail, to struggle with fidelity and caw about murder and remorse. Consequently, the box set section of most American record stores currently boasts a big, black mess of Johnny Cash-themed cubes. Posthumous marketing is particularly vicious: The Original Sun Albums, Unearthed, Man in Black, and now the four-disc The Legend bang corners, demanding further canonization, tapping persistently at our shoulders and wallets.
Still, the diversity of the Cash shopping spectrum is oddly apt: Both in-store and out, there are loads of different Cash archetypes to choose from. Check Outlaw Cash, with his middle finger shooting heavenward, face scrunched into anti-authoritarian glee, invading prison yards and calmly bellowing, "I shot a man in Reno/ Just to watch him die." Conjure Country Cash, standing alongside Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams, eyes hard, shaking his head at Nashville's pop-evolution. Note Family Cash, devoutly religious, wanting to record gospel songs with Sam Phillips, curling into June, and praying to be faithful. Or watch Neo-Cash lock arms with Rick Rubin, inadvertently charming the PBR-and-Pumas set with loads of quasi-ironic covers.
It's only logical, then, that The Legend is all-Cash in all forms. It's the most comprehensive Cash box released to date, covering nearly a half-century (1955-2002) of song, parsing his discography into four logically-titled discs: "Win, Place and Show: The Hits", which gathers radio favorites, "Old Favorites and New", all classic Cash, "The Great American Songbook", which sees Cash tackling traditional cuts, and "Family and Friends", two dozen collaborative cuts. The Legend is being released by Columbia, and unsurprisingly, focuses more heavily on Cash's Columbia work than his early Sun recordings. Regardless, its four discs expertly showcase the astonishing scope of Cash's talent: ranging from goofy, 1950s teen dance-pop ("Ballad of a Teenage Queen", "Guess Things Happen That Way") to gospel ("Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)", with the Carter Family) to traditional Americana standards ("I've Been Working on the Railroad", "Streets of Laredo"). The breadth of Cash's songbook almost justifies the dozens of roles he's been hustled into over the last 50 years-- and with seven previously unreleased songs, dug up from tapes in a backroom at the House of Cash, devotees are sure to start rethinking all other boxes crowding their shelves.
Cash recorded his first single for Sun in 1955 ("Hey, Porter" / "Cry, Cry, Cry"), featuring Marshall Grant on bass and Luther Perkins on guitar (then known as the Tennessee Two, and later, after W.S. Holland, one of country music's very first drummers, joined the lineup, as the Tennessee Three). But it wasn't until 1956, with the release of "I Walk the Line", a dutiful promise of loyalty to then-wife Vivian Liberto, that Cash managed to snag a hit. Appropriately, "I Walk the Line" opens the first disc of The Legend, its meandering guitar line interrupted by Cash's tinny humming, pitter-patter percussion, and that voice: Soul and gravity were hard-wired into Johnny Cash's pipes. Rumbling and shockingly understated, Cash's deep, belly-blows sound like divine direction, all confidence and purity. The effects are transformative: Imagine "Ring of Fire" sung karaoke-style, and then reconsider how Cash's grim nonchalance pushes the song to new levels of weird profundity, a sober counterpart to its yapping horns and jiggly rhythms.
Disc One corrals all of Cash's proper hits, making for a monstrous party record; Disc Two offers up a less cohesive collection (herded in under the vague heading "Old Favorites and New"), but manages some impressive transitions. Cash's rendition of "Long Black Veil" (also attempted by Joan Baez, David Allen Coe, Marianne Faithful, the Band, and Bobby Bare) is properly captivating: when Cash gets to the "me" in "The slayer who ran/ Looked a lot like me," his voice presses delicately but firmly, guaranteeing loads of jittery chills. Disc Two also harbors three previously unissued tracks, the best of which falls first: "Doin' My Time" is a pert, swinging ode to proper imprisonment, complete with guitar solo and courthouse laments.
Disc Three is packed with American classics, including a handful of Leadbelly songs (collected by Alan Lomax, of course), some Jimmie Rodgers, and plenty of Traditional cuts. Disc Four, which includes a mess of duets (see Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ray Charles, and others), has its questionable moments (Cash fronting U2 for "The Wanderer" is particularly gruesome), but closes with The Legend's prized jewel: "It Takes One to Know Me", written by Carlene Carter, June Carter Cash's daughter from her marriage to country star Carl Smith. Johnny attempted to record the song in 1977, as a duet with June, but left the song unfinished; Carlene's brother, John Carter Cash, agreed to produce the track, adding backing vocals by himself, his wife Laura, and his sister Carlene. "It Takes One to Know Me" mixes pristine, swelling strings with schmaltzy piano and guitar, but the vocals are mind-blowingly gritty: June and Johnny croon in perfect imperfect harmony, vowing earnest devotion to each other, acknowledging all the knots inherent to matrimony. The results are hauntingly real.
People tend to discuss Johnny Cash with grave, unbridled reverence, which is appropriate but awkward: His website (which bursts open with a booming "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash, welcome to JohnnyCash.com!", a proclamation just loud and weird enough to knock you off your chair), compares "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash" to "In God We Trust", claiming both "resonate throughout the world" and "stand the test of time." The liner notes to The Legend boast that in 1969, Muhammad Ali and Johnny Cash were the best-known people on the planet. Cash's prominence may have wilted slightly in the past 35 years, but not significantly, and The Legend. should only confirm Cash's American Hero cred-- not as some presupposed "authentic," but as an astoundingly multi-talented songwriter.
