Additional personnel: The Gene Lowery Singers (background vocals).

Recorded at Sun Studios, Memphis, Tennessee between 1955 and 1958.

Includes liner notes by Allen J. Wiener.

The material included on this indispensable two-disc set makes up one of the cornerstones of country music. The raw, gritty sound of Johnny Cash had few precedents in country, other than honky-tonk heroes Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb. In fact, Cash's seminal 1950s recordings for Memphis's groundbreaking Sun label, simultaneously redefined country and invented rockabilly, thereby establishing a kind of post-honky-tonk sound. Even more personal in his vocal delivery than Tubb and more emotionally direct than Williams, Cash expressed the sentiments of the common man in language at once plain and casually artful, like a down-home Shakespeare armed with a percussive acoustic guitar.

All the high points of the Sun years are hit here--the grim resignation of "Guess Things Happen That Way," the idiosyncratic devotional statement of "I Walk the Line," the sociopath's lament "Folsom Prison Blues," and so on down the line. The minimalist sound of Cash's backing group matches the lean, honest sentiments and style of the songs every step of the way, giving a lesson in the virtues of economy.