Johnny Cash
Bootleg, Volume 2: From
Memphis to Hollywood
Columbia/Legacy
Bootleg, Volume 2: From Memphis to Hollywood
takes you back to the ’50s and ’60s, when
Cash lived in the studio. During these two
decades, he released 20 studio albums producing
plenty of B-sides, demos, unreleased songs,
and alternative takes filling two CDs—1950s
and 1960s—with 57 songs, including 16
never-heard recordings.
The first disc showcases a young, impressionable
Cash recording gospel (“Belshazzar”),
rockabilly (“You’re My Baby”—later made
famous by Roy Orbison), heartbroken blues
(“When I Think of You”), and country
(“Brakeman’s Blues”—a Jimmie Rodgers
cover) in a style that demonstrates great
empathy for the genre rather than a reliance
on his own charismatic persona—a talent he
demonstrated in later recordings, particularly
his
American albums. The 1960s disc oozes
with Cash’s room-filling, baritone swagger particularly
on the hilarious “Foolish Questions,”
the poignant “Five Minutes to Live,” the self-deprecating
“The Losing Kind” and the slow,
prison ballad “Send a Picture of Mother.”
The boom-chick-a-boom rhythm associated
with Cash, guitarist Luther Perkins, and bassist
Marshall Grant, is on parade throughout
both discs and the musical transitions Cash
endures. Production gets slicker on the second
disc thanks to Columbia Records and producer
Don Law. But the first one—loaded with
14 demos—has a garage-recording charm,
complete with Sun Studio and Sam Phillips’
signature reverb. The 1950s disc starts with
a 15-minute segment from a KWEM radio
program—complete with Cash selling home
improvement goods—that aired in May 1955.
While not nearly as accessible as other posthumous
hit-laden collections,
Bootleg, Volume
2: From Memphis to Hollywood captures a historically
important musical and transformation
of a young Cash from his frenetically ragged
roots to one of American music’s most important
lyrical philosophers.