Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash

1	Understand Your Man / T Double 3:13
2	I Still Miss Someone / Rosanne Cash 3:14
3	Train of Love / Bob Dylan 3:23
4	Get Rhythm / Little Richard 3:02
5	Folsom Prison Blues / Keb' Mo' 3:53
6	I Walk the Line / Travis Tritt 4:18
7	Big River / Hank Williams Jr. 3:07
8	Give My Love to Rose / Bruce Springsteen 2:55
9	Don't Take Your Guns to Town / Charlie Robison 3:46
10	Flesh and Blood / Sheryl Crow 3:44
11	Hardin Wouldn't Run / Steve Earle 4:23
12	Hey Porter / Marty Stuart 2:32
13	Meet Me in Heaven / Janette Carter 3:21
14	For Luther (I Walk the Line Reprise) / Mudcats 0:48

Barnes & Noble

A standout among tributes, Kindred Spirits is a great album through and through. The high quality springs from the stature of the tribute's subject, Johnny Cash, whose catalogue is incomparably rich, deep, and soulful, and the commitment of a cast of roots rockers who never once deign to phone it in. The material here not only traverses Cash's perennial themes of love, God, and murder but also includes a couple of evocative train songs, a prison song, and one of the all-time great kiss-off songs, "Understand Your Man," which Dwight Yoakam attacks with venom, rage, and even a smidgen of sadistic glee. But that's only the beginning. Rosanne Cash and the trio of Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, and Mary Chapin Carpenter are nothing less than stunning on the poignant heartbreaker "I Still Miss Someone" and the exquisite "Flesh and Blood." Keb' Mo' offers a startling deconstruction of "Folsom Prison Blues," performing it as a bone-dry Delta-style blues number, with one telling lyric change -- "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die" becomes "They said I shot a man down in Reno/That was just a lie" -- that utterly transforms this durable classic. Little Richard has his finest moment on record since 1970's "Freedom Blues" with a rocking take on "Get Rhythm" that burns as righteously as one of his classic '50s Specialty recordings. And it doesn't let up: Bruce Springsteen sings with Nebraska-like gravitas on "Give My Love to Rose," Steve Earle spins an Old West yarn on "Hardin Didn't Run," Bob Dylan offers a gruff, rumbling take on "Train of Love," and Hank Williams Jr. roars through "Big River." The pièce de r´esistance, however, is the closing gospel gem "Meet Me in Heaven," which Janette Carter -- a daughter of the Carter Family's A. P. and Sara Carter, she's Johnny's cousin by marriage -- renders in a chilling, weathered lead vocal, with a cameo from the Man in Black himself on a gripping verse. Producer Marty Stuart, who has a long history of doing right by his former father-in-law, delivers big-time here; this is great American music done with the respect, love, and conviction Johnny Cash's songs deserve. (Released at the same time, Dressed in Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash is a more indie-centric, but equally gratifying, homage to Cash.) David McGee

All Music Guide

The second of two Johnny Cash tribute discs released in September 2002 (the other is Dressed in Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash) brings out the big guns in terms of marquee talent. As the album's coordinator, musician Marty Stuart has the background and contacts to pull this project off. Any collection with previously unreleased tracks from Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, and Steve Earle has built in credibility. All the participants are enthusiastic and dedicated, but the most stirring tracks inject a different spin to the originals. Dylan's spoken intro to "Train of Love" thanks Cash for standing up for him "way back when" before launching into one of the most emotionally stirring performances on this album. Little Richard does his best "Long Tall Sally" with a rock'em sock'em "Get Rhythm," but his voice isn't what it used to be and the song ends up sounding more like a Richard tune than a Cash one. Much better is Keb' Mo', who slows down "Folsom Prison Blues" to an ominous, swamp/bluesy crawl. Travis Tritt successfully rearranges "I Walk the Line" into a slow but menacing honky tonk ballad similar to how George Jones might approach it. Hal Horowitz