Johnny Cash with exquisite companion volume (Anyone else ever had the honor of a Carl Perkins dabeizuhaben as sideman?) The live performance in front of prisoners so. The spark was the same about "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash", you can feel it. One has the raging crowd literally before our eyes. I know many excellent live albums, but can anstinken against this madness atmosphere none of them. Cash is not as benevolent uncle, wet researchers wannabe benefactors or buddy-making conversion Preacher: From the very first moment he is on par with his audience. Chats, quick-witted remarks, sarcastic comments, nasty jokes: All you can hear between songs and even in the middle, nothing about it is placed or pseudo-cool, but real. The delightful banter that with Cash please "Can I have a glass of water?" his initial takes, is representative of many others.
The eye level makes it so. And that's why the quoted above line is from "Folsom Prison Blues" not alone and abandoned in this show: Who else but Johnny Cash have dared it here, the soaked in pitch-black humor "25 Minutes to Go" with final lautmalerischem On-gallows -Baumeln carry forward? -- Rhetorical Question; also had no other dared to dare. But with cash the audience laughs just at the allerschwärzesten points. Similarly, "Joe Bean", the schwarzhumorigste bitter indictment that you can imagine. "They hanged this son of a bitch anyway" ... and the audience figured out how it is meant. Cash as a magician.
So much for unrepeatable intense atmosphere of this album. Here the whole is also musically top notch, especially in the now restored full version. A highlight is certainly "Orange Blossom Special", which translated into the musical ride a steam locomotive, with a heroic use of a harmonica (Cash's comment is again unbeatable). A better version of it is not it, it can not give. Or take "The Long Black Veil" - Cash sings this traditional, accompanied sparingly by his acoustic guitar, so insistently that suddenly all the others ever were one forgets versions; the whole thing is incredibly perfect, by the way also takes here again the "American Recordings" anticipate. But the icing on the whole is not even the musical instinct, the cash can crawl formally in this piece, but that he starts to giggle at the allerergreifendsten point. The spell is broken. Only because of this scene you have to connect it to the heart. And not only here he takes himself for a ride.
As for the songs: In addition to less known and almost unknown you get here, of course, the live versions of the classics to the ears, besides those already mentioned as "I Walk the Line" for example also "Jackson". The latter, of course, known as a duet with June Carter, and more groovy than the studio version. The two are, you can hear that.
I could now imagine each of the 19 tracks thrilled everyone deserves it, but instead I recommend to listen to this CD at a time. And before that necessarily auszustöpseln all phones and turn off the doorbell.
Even owners of old LP can only recommend buying the CD! What was then left out, was far weaker than the published material. For this, the booklet - it contains Cash facsimile handwritten reflections on this concert even more flashbacks and statements from 2000, on the occasion of the full re-issue. Even if you have already guessed it, we read here in black and white how much he had meant this concert - Cash's monument in his lifetime, Part. 1
Five (thousand) star.