Johnny Cash
The Complete Sun Recordings (1955-1958) Box Set
Available: November 8, 2005
Label: Time Life Records

I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they’re no good. I don’t throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight. – Johnny Cash

The Man in Black is back again. He doesn’t die, seriously.

Coming in November, check out yet another new Johnny Cash box set, The Complete Sun Recordings (1955-1958), featuring 61 songs on three discs recorded at the legendary Memphis Sun Studios in the mid-50’s. All songs have been “painstakingly” restored to their original versions from the newly revamped retail music division of Time Life. Frankly, it’s a pretty great box set, too.

Highlights include “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Cry, Cry, Cry,” “I Walk The Line” and “Give My Love to Rose,” plus classic covers including Gene Autry’s “Hey Good Lookin’” and several by Hank Williams.

We assume the release is timed to reach stores just as the new biopic, Walk the Line , hits movie theaters (starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon) – a movie chronicling Cash’s life from his early days as an Arkansas cotton farmer to his rise to fame at Sun, where he recorded with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and more.

Overall, this box set, in combination with The Legend–a previously released box set spanning the years 1955-2002 including a few Sun recordings (but not many) – and DVD Johnny Cash! The Man, His World, His Music will ensure that you have officially become a Cash-head. And you don’t even have to lose your woman, dog, truck or go to prison.