Bootleg, Vol. 3 - Live Around the World

iTunes Review

This collection focuses on live performances from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, with 39 previously unreleased performances. Among the exciting newly released material is a concert from 1962—known as Live at New River Ranch, Rising Sun, Maryland—where Cash delivers a demolishing take on “Rock Island Line” and a revved-up version of “I Walk the Line.” The recordings from the USO tour in January 1969 at the NCO Club in Long Binh, Vietnam, are raw and exciting, highlighted by powerful renditions of “Wreck of the Old ’97,” “Cocaine Blues,” and “Ring of Fire,” played to a raucous crowd of servicemen. In contrast are the sobering performances and vocal-heavy recordings from the White House in 1970, where President Nixon introduces Cash. Powerfully rough 1979 recordings of “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” and “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal,” from the Exit Inn in Nashville, showcase Cash’s vitality. He was still delivering on the passion that can be heard in the earliest tapes here, from the Big D Jamboree in Dallas in 1956, where Cash and the Perkins brothers spearheaded their locomotive sound.