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The Essential Johnny Cash
03/05/2002 8:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Chris Morris
Columbia/Legacy begins its 70th-birthday celebration of the craggy country legend more interested in the cash that comes in bags than in John R. himself. "The Essential" is a scattershot and somewhat chintzy two-CD overview that does not supercede previous best-ofs; while it includes eight '50s jewels cut during Cash's '50s Sun Records residency and hits many high points from his lengthy Columbia tenancy, the package feels incomplete, and sadly incorporates none of his stark Rick Rubin recordings of the '90s. Those who admire Cash's sturdy brand of jingoism will take to "America" (complete with intrusive narration) and "Ragged Old Flag," a pair of pre-Bicentennial flag-wavers from the '70s. While both records are incontestably sincere and deeply in the American grain, they're only sporadically as affecting as Cash's best work, and their present re-release seems calculate more to stoke post-9/11 patriotism than to celebrate the cavern-voiced singer's finest work.
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