This came out in 2000 — or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Bridegrooms wear black. So do preachers, judges and executioners.
And, of course, so does Johnny Cash — The Man in Black. That sartorial synchronicity should come as no surprise. Especially not when you recall that the country music legend has spent decades singing about subjects he and those dark-dudded dudes understand intimately — romance, obsession, religion, temptation, betrayal, crime, punishment and death. Or to boil it down to the pithy three-word title of his new box set: Love, God, Murder.
If it seems like short shrift to sum up Cash with three little words, well, put your mind at ease. Johnny doesn’t mind a bit. In fact, if you believe the press bumpf, it was Cash himself who came up with the concept: A three-disc retrospective, with one CD devoted to each of the themes that have dominated his art. He supervised the production and remastering and even penned brief liner notes for the discs (which are also available separately).
More importantly, he also selected the songs, combing hundreds of tunes from his earliest Sun sessions to ’90s Viper Room gigs to select the 48 tracks (roughly one for every year he’s been in show biz) on these three CDs. That input is what sets Love, God, Murder apart from yer typical greatest-hits set compiled by record-company weasels. Not that you won’t find hits here; there are plenty of ’em — from Ring Of Fire and Folsom Prison Blues to Delia’s Gone, many of Cash’s classics are present and accounted for. Along with ’em, though (and instead of overplayed chestnuts like A Boy Named Sue or Tennessee Flat-Top Box), you get a healthy serving of more obscure tracks; old B-sides, long-forgotten album cuts and oddball ditties that topped Johnny’s personal hit parade even if them never charted in Billboard. Of course, he sings ’em all like they were destined to be, with those coal-mine deep pipes and that world-weary delivery of his.
Which of the three is best? Well, that’s like asking whether you prefer air, food or water. Love has I Walk The Line, Ring Of Fire, a tender take on Bob Wills’ My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You, two top-drawer unreleased tracks — the doo-woppy My Old Faded Rose and the brooding weeper I Tremble For You — along with a sweetly touching essay by wife June Carter about how she became hypnotized by Johnny’s “black eyes that shone like agates.”
God skips bigger faves like Peace In The Valley for lesser-known fare (at least to heathens like me) such as My God Is Real and It Was Jesus. However, Kris Kristofferson’s Why Me Lord and Johnny’s own Great Speckled Bird might ring a few church bells with even the biggest sinners — and spirited numbers like The Greatest Cowboy Of Them All and Man In White keep the disc from getting overly reverent (as does a typically bombastic essay from Bono).
But if Johnny had an angel on one shoulder, he always had a devil on the other. It was that struggle with his own personal demons — notably long addictions to various substances — that made so much of his music so compelling. And it’s what makes Murder (with liner notes by Quentin Tarantino) the standout of this bunch. If Folsom Prison Blues and Long Black Veil don’t do it for you, well, there’s always the incredible chain-gang boogie of Goin’ To Memphis, his haunting cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Highway Patrolman, or the rollicking Cocaine Blues, a tale of drugs, betrayal and murder recorded during his famous ’60s gig at Folsom (and which is cooler than anything so-called bad boys like Guns N’ Roses ever did).
Now that Cash’s health is in decline — he suffers from the degenerative neurological disorder Shy-Drager Syndrome — he may be thinking about how he wants to be remembered. With these three discs, folks can take their pick: Devoted husband, God-fearing penitent or prototypical rock ‘n’ roll rebel. Either way, there’s no doubt of his true legacy: Great American Artist.
