Customer Reviews

The Man In Black Vol. 1: 1954-1958

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This is a superb complete box set of Cash's Sun material and early Columbia work. There are other CD's available of his sun work and a lot more overdubbing are on some of thoese CD's, but on this box set you will hear them as they were recorded originally! There are a few surprises on this box set and quite a few outtakes and chatter in the studio which I know you will really enjoy. The best CD is disc 5 though. There is an uninterrupted recording session from 1959 with Johnny, the Tennessee Three and the Jordanaires recording Lead Me Father, That's Enough, Picking Time, Don't Take Your Guns To Town, I Still Miss Someone, One More Ride and Cold Shoulder. I highly recommend it to all Cash fans as it is a graet introduction to his career!

This five cd set includes everything that Johnny Cash recorded for Sun Records. All of his fifties hits are here "Hey Porter", "I Walk The Line", "Folsom Prison Blues", few Hank Williams' songs "Hey, Good Lookin'", "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With", "Cold, Cold Heart", "I Could Never Be Ashamed of You" and some alternate takes are featured here. Must for Johnny's fans!

Johnny Cash / The Man In Black (Vol. 1) / 1954-1958 (Bear Family Records 5 CDs = 4 studio CDs plus 1 studio "session" CD).

Bear Family Records gathers every single track of every single song and every outtake and puts them all into their Three Box sets of Johnny Cash but these box sets only cover his songs from the beginning of his career in the 1950's to the end of the 1960's. They also have a Forth Box set of Johnny Cash's "Concept Albums" which were made in the 1960's to the late 1970's, but that box only covers those particular sessions and are not all inclusive of the recordings of those years. While these box sets are perfect for the ultimate Johnny Cash fans, the various outtakes of the same song can get weary with repetition.

The First Four CD's in this box covers all the great tracks that made Johnny Cash a recording legend. These are the "rockabilly" recordings he made for Sam Phillips' Sun Records which became Country Music standards, as well as his first tracks for Columbia. The fifth CD in this Vol. 1 set may be one of the strangest in Bear Family history, as this disc gives us a complete studio session from August 13th, 1958 which has him working on "Lead Me Father", "That's Enough", "I Still Miss Someone", "One More Ride", "Pickin Time", "Don't Take Your Guns To Town", plus "I'd Rather Die Young", "The Shepherd of My Heart" and "Cold Shoulder" with banter, false starts, accepted and rejected masters. This Fifth CD in the set is certainly interesting on first hearing, but it is hardly something that you'll play much for entertainment. However, it is an amazing addition from Bear Family.

This first volume of the J.C. box sets from Bear Family deserves a Five Star rating.

One word for this collection: exhuastive.

If you are a Cash enthusiast, this collection, containing an extraordinary number of outtakes, is a must have. The liner notes are thorough and make for good reading. I understand there is still a lot of unreleased material from this time period, but this collection has everything that's publically available. The organization of the material is raw, presenting a number of tunes repeating themselves back-to-back, and is clearly intended for the collector.

This amazing box from Bear Family Records includes all SUN recordings plus an eye on the wall at his first Columbia session.Amazing good sound.
Here you can hear Johnny sing "Rock and roll Ruby" pure rockabilly.It is amazing how his last rockabilly recordings 45 years later has the same good rocking sound.Compare it to the rockabilly recordings on "Unearthed".If you buy this and "Unearthed" you will find out that Johnny got back to his country roots.Buy it you will not regret it,well spent money.