Johnny Cash: The Complete Columbia Album Collection Explained

The Complete Columbia Album Collection
Type:Box set
Artist:Johnny Cash
Cover:Johnny Cash- The Complete Columbia Album Collection.jpg
Released:December 4, 2012
Recorded:1956–2003
Genre:Country
Label:
Producer:
  • Gregg Geller
  • Steve Berkowitz
Prev Year:2010
Next Title:Out Among the Stars
Next Year:2014

The Complete Columbia Album Collection is a box set by country singer Johnny Cash, released posthumously in 2012 on Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings.

The set consists of 63 CDs, the majority of which are reissues of 59 albums released by Cash during his 1958–1986 tenure with Columbia. Each CD is packaged in a replica of the original LP cover, with any albums originally issued as two-LP set condensed onto one disc with the exception of The Gospel Road which remains in a two-CD configuration. Bonus material includes a two-CD set titled The Singles, Plus, compiling non-album tracks and duets taken from other albums; a Carter Family album on which Cash provided guest vocals; the two albums Cash recorded for Columbia as a member of the supergroup The Highwaymen; and an extended edition of the Sun Records album With His Hot and Blue Guitar with additional tracks from the Sun era (including the complete contents of his second Sun album, Sings the Songs That Made Him Famous). Hot and Blue Guitar is the only album to be presented in an extended edition; all other albums are featured with their original contents, without augmentation. As such this is not a complete survey of everything Cash recorded for Columbia; for example, additional performances from the At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin live shows, included on separate reissues of the two albums, are not included. Also omitted is the 1975 album Destination Victoria Station which had featured new performances of previously released recordings, the 1961 Andre Kostelanetz orchestral album The Lure of the Grand Canyon which had been narrated by Cash, the 1980 gospel album A Believer Sings the Truth (recorded for Columbia but released on another label), as well as most of the tracks issued on Columbia's Bootleg series of 2011–2012.[1] [2] Compilation albums that had originally featured previously unreleased tracks (i.e. Heart of Cash) are also skipped in favor of putting most of those tracks in the Singles, Plus set. Out Among the Stars, a complete album recorded by Cash in the early 1980s but not released at that time, is also omitted as it would not be released officially until 2014.

Many of the albums featured in the set make their CD debut in the collection. According to country historian Rich Kienzle's liner notes (part of a 200-page book included in the set), one album Koncert V Praze (In Prague–Live) received its first North American release in the set.[3]

Album list

  1. The Fabulous Johnny Cash
  2. Hymns by Johnny Cash
  3. Songs of Our Soil
  4. Now, There Was a Song!
  5. Ride This Train
  6. Hymns from the Heart
  7. The Sound of Johnny Cash
  8. Blood, Sweat and Tears
  10. The Christmas Spirit
  11. Keep on the Sunny Side – The Carter Family with special guest Johnny Cash
  12. I Walk the Line
  14. Orange Blossom Special
  15. Sings the Ballads of the True West
  16. Everybody Loves a Nut
  17. Happiness Is You
  18. Carryin' On with Johnny Cash and June Carter
  19. From Sea to Shining Sea
  20. Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison
  21. The Holy Land
  22. Johnny Cash at San Quentin
  23. Hello, I'm Johnny Cash
  24. The Johnny Cash Show
  25. I Walk the Line
  26. Little Fauss and Big Halsy
  27. Man in Black
  28. A Thing Called Love
  30. The Johnny Cash Family Christmas
  31. Any Old Wind That Blows
  32. The Gospel Road (disc 1)
  33. The Gospel Road (disc 2)
  34. Johnny Cash and His Woman
  35. På Österåker
  36. Ragged Old Flag
  37. Junkie and the Juicehead Minus Me
  38. The Johnny Cash Children's Album
  39. Sings Precious Memories
  40. John R. Cash
  41. Look at Them Beans
  42. Strawberry Cake
  43. One Piece at a Time
  44. The Last Gunfighter Ballad
  45. The Rambler
  46. I Would Like to See You Again
  47. Gone Girl
  48. Silver
  49. Rockabilly Blues
  50. Classic Christmas
  51. The Baron
  52. The Survivors Live – Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins
  53. The Adventures of Johnny Cash
  54. Johnny 99
  55. Koncert V Praze (In Prague–Live)
  56. Rainbow
  57. Highwayman – Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson
  58. Heroes – Johnny Cash & Waylon Jennings
  59. Highwayman 2 – Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson
  60. At Madison Square Garden

Note: Tracks 1–12 are the original album line-up; Tracks 13–28 are exclusive to this reissue.

Notes and References

  1. JOHNNY CASH -- THE COMPLETE COLUMBIA ALBUM COLLECTION Brings Together 59 Albums On 63 CDs, From 1958's The Fabulous Johnny Cash Through 1990's Highwayman 2 With Waylon, Willie And Kristofferson. Prnewswire.com. 21 November 2021.
  2. The four-volume Bootleg series, released under Columbia-Legacy in 2011–2012, consists of four sets of rare and mostly previously unreleased Cash recordings: Vol. 1 features home recordings and demos (which had previously been issued as Personal File in 2006); Vol. 2 features Sun demos, a transcribed episode of the Johnny Cash Show radio program from 1955, rare singles (not all of which are included in The Singles, Plus) and unissued recordings; Vol. 3 compiles live recordings dating from the 1950s to 1979; Vol. 4 compiles Gospel recordings, including the contents of two albums recorded during Cash's Columbia tenure but initially released by other labels, and a complete third album that was never released.
  3. Rich Kienzle, writing in Johnny Cash: The Complete Columbia Album Collection liner notes, 2012, p. 29

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