Artist: JOHNNY CASH
Album: BEST OF THE SUN YEARS (CD)

Release date: 2005
Media type: CD

In 1954, Cash moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell." Cash eventually won over Phillips with new songs delivered in his early frenetic style. His first recordings at Sun, "Hey Porter" and "Cry Cry Cry", were released in 1955 and met with reasonable success on the country hit parade.

Cash's next record, Folsom Prison Blues, made the country Top 5, and "I Walk the Line" became No. 1 on the country charts and entered the pop charts Top 20. Following "I Walk the Line" was "Home of the Blues", recorded in July 1957. That same year Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. Although he was Sun's most consistently best-selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label. Elvis Presley had already left Sun, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Jerry Lee Lewis. The following year Cash left the label to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records, where his single "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" became one of his biggest hits.

TRACKLIST:

01.: Hey Porter
02.: I Walk The Line
03.: Get Rhythm
04.: Folsom Prison Blues
05.: Wreck Of The Old '97
06.: Rock Island Line
07.: Cry Cry Cry
08.: Luther Played The Boogie
09.: Ballad Of A Teenage Queen
10.: Big River
11.: Blue Train
12.: Train Of Love
13.: There You Go
14.: Come In Stranger
15.: You're The Nearest Thing To Heaven
16.: Katy Too
17.: Oh Lonesome Me
18.: Born To Lose
19.: Hey Good Looking
20.: Country Boy
21.: Sugartime
22.: Next In Line
23.: So Doggone Lonesome
24.: Wide Open Road
25.: Doin' My Time