Johnny Cash

The Great Lost Performances - Island Records It is almost impossible to fathom an era where Johnny Cash was irrelevant, but there was a time when Columbia Records considered him to be an albatross around their necks.

He could not get arrested on Lower Broad and had to wait in line at open-mike night at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. Well, the last two items might be stretching the truth a bit, but the '80s were not kind to Johnny Cash.

This live performance, recorded in Asbury Park, N.J., one July night in 1990, was recorded four years before Rick Rubin and Cash met and the now legendary American Recordings sessions had gotten underway. There, the genius of Cash took a

new turn. At San Quentin

it ain't, but Cash keeps a stiff upper lip and puts on one heck of a show. He is at the top of his game when he sings "Sunday Morning Coming Down," and "Five Feet High and Rising" is sung with the same luster.

He blazes through his Sun Records singles "Hey Porter" and ""I Walk the Line" with a larger band than the Tennessee Three, but it still hangs onto the magic of his Sun Years.

The duet "Jackson," with his wife, June Carter Cash, has June belting out lines like I have never heard her do. She also keeps up her traveling-medicine-show-style humor between a couple of songs. Although his record company had lost faith in Cash, you can hear in his voice and command of the stage that he had not lost faith in himself. That is what truly separates The Man in Black from the boys in hats!