These 18 tracks (12 of them from the original 1959 LP, The Fabulous Johnny Cash, and 6 of them recorded during the same sessions, but previously unreleased in the U.S.) captured Cash during a particularly vital period of his long, illustrious career. Cash first broke through in the mid-`50s with his now-trademark "boom-chicka-boom" rhythms and sonorous, drawling baritone on Memphis"s Sun Records; these are the earliest recordings from his nearly three decades on the Columbia label. Demonstrating an energy and down-home diversity that would later become even more fully realized, Cash herein moves deftly from introspective ballads (his original "Run Softly, Blue River") and railroad songs ("One More Ride") to cowboy ballads (his sardonic original, "Don"t Take Your Guns to Town") and stoic laments like "I Still Miss Someone." In the process, he refines a vivid musical persona that more or less became synonymous with country music in the 1960s. --Bob Allen