The records that established Johnny Cash as one of the greatest American singer songwriters are his first for Sun and Columbia Records, the best part of which is included here. From Southern gospel and country music, all the way through to blues and rockabilly, he was the first rock giant to draw mainly from the European-American tradition - unlike his contemporaries and friends Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis who drew mainly from the African-American repertoire. Bruno Blum comments on the course of this prolific, born storyteller, a musical incarnation of the Wild West myth.