Easy Rider: The Best of Mercury Recordings

Format: 2LP

n 1986, after almost 30 years on Columbia Records, Country music legend Johnny Cash released his first album on Mercury Records – Class Of ’55, in collaboration with fellow Sun Records alumni Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Seven years later, his last recording before signing with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings would be another collaboration, “The Wanderer”, with U2.

In the years that span those recordings, Johnny Cash released a total of six albums for Mercury Records. The highlights of that output are presented here, on the brand new compilation Easy Rider: The Best Of The Mercury Recordings.

Now remastered for the very first time, using the original Mercury master tapes, the 24 tracks that make up the set feature Cash’s updated interpretations of classics songs “Get Rhythm” and “Tennessee Flat Top Box”, the rare B-side “Veteran’s Day”, Elvis Costello’s “The Big Light”, and his collaboration with U2, “The Wanderer”.

Featuring brand new liner notes by music writer Scott Schinder, Easy Rider represents the very first collection of Johnny Cash’s Mercury Records recording career.

Side A
Waymore Blues (with Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins)
We Remember The King
The Big Light
The Night Hank Williams Came To Town (with Waylon Jennings)
Let Him Roll
W. Lee O'Daniel (And The Light Crust Dough Boys)

Side B
Ballad Of A Teenage Queen (with Roseanne Cash & The Everly Brothers)
The Last Of The Drifters (with Tom T. Hall)
That Old Wheel (with Hank Williams Jr.)
Get Rhythm
Tennessee Flat Top Box
Sunday Morning Coming Down

Side C
Veteran’s Day
A Backstage Pass
Cat's In The Cradle
Farmer's Almanac
Monteagle Mountain
I Shall Be Free

Side D
I'm An Easy Rider
The Greatest Cowboy Of Them All
Hey Porter
The Mystery Of Life
Goin' By The Book
The Wanderer (with U2)