Ring of Fire: Best of

This 1963 release is not a greatest-hits package, as the subtitle would have you believe, although the title cut did top the country charts. Instead, it offers a worthy sampling of Cash's far-ranging moods--dramatic saga songs, gospel hymns, love songs, honky-tonk weepers, folk ballads. The steady Tennessee Two churn forms the musical foundation, but is at times embellished by everything from banjo to mariachi horns to string section to background chorus to the Carter Family. Cash's august vocal tone and torpid phrasing command attention regardless of song or surroundings. --Marc Greilsamer