Johnny Cash
wasn't the first major
country music
star to host a television series, but he was the first to have a weekly show on a major network, and given
Cash
's eclectic willingness to embrace any kind of music as long as it was good and honest, it's not surprising that during its two years on the air
The Johnny Cash Show
featured a variety of noted musical artists who didn't often appear on television, including
Bob Dylan
,
Louis Armstrong
Neil Young
, and
Bill Monroe
. None of those performers appear on this CD drawn from the archives of
(though they can be seen on a companion DVD set released by
Columbia/Legacy
), and the big studio band that muddies the arrangements of
"I Walk the Line,"
"Daddy Sang Bass,"
and
"I've Been Everywhere"
on this disc prove that for all
's brave good intentions, there were some conventions of American television he wasn't able to escape. It's also hard to say why, given the star-studded roster of artists who graced
's stage, this disc features
Bobby Bare
Lynn Anderson
Tammy Wynette
instead of, say,
Stevie Wonder
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Pete Seeger
(though in all fairness
Bare
's rendition of
"Detroit City"
on this album is terrific).
The Best of the Johnny Cash TV Show
doesn't quite deliver the show's most historically significant and exciting moments, but what's here is generally pretty good.
Ray Charles
delivers a passionate reading of
"Ring of Fire,"
duets memorably with
Joni Mitchell
on
"Girl from the North Country,"
Waylon Jennings
sings
"Brown Eyed Handsome Man"
with his usual casual authority (and his banter with
is spontaneous and funny) and
Kris Kristofferson
is near the top of his game as a performer as he sings
"Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again),"
while
delivers the goods with strong renditions of
"Flesh and Blood"
"Belshazzar."
's television series was a fearless experiment in bringing the best of American music to the small screen, and the DVD collection demonstrates that it often achieved that lofty goal; this CD doesn't hit that same target, even if it does preserve a few pearls from the
archive. [The disc was also released with a bonus track,] ~ Mark Deming