Carryin' On

Personnel includes: Johnny Cash, June Carter (vocals); Luther Perkins, Carl Perkins (guitar); Marshall Grant (bass).
Producers: Don Law, Frank Jones.
Reissue producer: Bob Irwin.
Includes liner notes by Carl Perkins and Holly George-Warren.
Digitally remastered by Vic Anesini (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York).
This 1967 album finds Johnny Cash performing a series of duets with Carter Family graduate June Carter, the woman who would become his lifetime companion. Cash picks up on the folk-rock thread of his previous mid-'60s releases by tackling Richard & Mimi Farina's transcendent ballad "Pack Up Your Sorrows" and reprising Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" from 1965's ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL. The centerpiece of the album is "Jackson," a sparring-couple tour de force that became one of Cash's most-requested tunes and a concert staple for decades to come, but "Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man" is in the same lyrical vein with even more engaging music. Also notable are Cash's forays into R&B with two Ray Charles-identified tunes, "I Got a Woman" and "What'd I Say." These won't make anybody forget Brother Ray's versions, but one has to admire Cash's eclectic fortitude and commitment.