With His Hot and Blue Guitar (Sun Records 70th / Remastered 2022)

All legends start somewhere, and With His Hot and Blue Guitar is where the legend of Johnny Cash began. Newly remastered in honour of Sun Records’ 70th Anniversary, Cash’s debut album was also the first LP issued by Sam Phillips on the legendary label.

With His Hot And Blue Guitar: Johnny Cash was one of the most imposing and influential figures in post-World War II country music. With his deep, resonant baritone and spare percussive guitar, he had a basic, distinctive sound. Cash didn’t sound like Nashville, nor did he sound like honky tonk or rock and roll. He created his own subgenre, falling halfway between the blunt emotional honesty of folk, the rebelliousness of rock and roll and the world-weariness of country. Cash’s career coincided with the birth of rock and roll and his rebellious attitude and simple, direct musical attack shared a lot of similarities with rock. However, there was a deep sense of history - as he would later illustrate with his series of historical albums - that kept him forever tied with country. And he was one of country music’s biggest stars of the 1950s and 1960s, scoring well over 100 hit singles.