Intervention Records To Release Deluxe Vinyl Of ‘Johnny Cash With His Hot And Blue Guitar!’

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Intervention Records is continuing its Sun Records Hi-Fi Series featuring classic titles mastered to vinyl from original tapes in the Sun vaults with Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar!, due out Feb. 20.

The first long-playing record from Cash, the album includes tracks like “I Walk The Line,” “Cry, Cry, Cry” and “Folsom Prison Blues” mastered to vinyl in an all-analog process, plus restored artwork featuring new liner notes. Originally released in 1957, Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! showcases the stripped-down sound that would make Cash one of the most enduring musicians of the 20th century. Backed by his “Tennessee Two” (Luther Perkins on lead guitar and Marshall Grant on upright bass) and augmented by Sam Phillips’ signature studio slapback “boom-chicka-boom” sound, Hot and Blue Guitar! is the album that introduced Cash’s baritone.

The project features Cash’s first three single A-sides for Sun, all self-penned: “Cry, Cry, Cry,” (a No. 14 hit), “So Doggone Lonesome” (which reached No. 4 on the charts) and Cash’s signature “I Walk The Line,” which was a No. 1 country smash for six non-consecutive weeks before crossing over into the Top 20 of Billboard’s pop charts. It also includes Cash’s renditions “The Wreck Of The Old 97” and “Rock Island Line,” as well as a fourth original, “Folsom Prison Blues,” which topped the country charts more than a decade later when Cash performed it as part of his landmark 1968 live album At Folsom Prison.

“I never imagined that I’d hear the iconic voice of Johnny Cash on Intervention Records!” says Shane Buettner, Intervention Records’ founder. “And I don’t think music fans around the world have ever heard Johnny’s voice, or Sam Phillips’ famous Sun Studio sound, as clearly and definitively as they will on this new 45 RPM mono cut. This is as close you can get to a time machine back to Memphis in the 1950s!”

Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! is the second title in Intervention’s Sun Records Hi-Fi Series, and follows the debut release in the series (and Sun’s second LP), Dance Album of Carl Perkins, which will be available in December.

Lorie Hollabaugh
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