Music DVD Center

Even before his passing in 2003, there was already an enormous amount of Johnny Cash compilations in circulation, and the amount of new releases only intensified afterward. Case in point, the 2005 double-disc, CD/DVD set Johnny Cash Collection. The 25-track audio portion is quite a dandy, as quite a few early Cash classics are represented, including "I Walk the Line," "Folsom Prison Blues," "Big River," "Hey Porter," and "Get Rhythm." It is this early era of Cash's recording career that many longtime fans point to as his finest, as "the Man in Black" played a major part in popularizing rockabilly -- a style that managed to combine both country and rock & roll. But this certainly isn't a career-encompassing collection, especially when such renowned tracks as "Ring of Fire" and "Boy Named Sue" aren't included. The DVD is not a musical one but, surprisingly, an obscure made-for-TV movie that Cash starred in from 1981, The Pride of Jesse Hallam, which sees Cash playing the lead role of a miner who is an illiterate single father raising two children. With a wide variety of better-assembled Cash collections already out there, Johnny Cash Collection isn't the best, but certainly not the worst, either.