I love free stuff.

As you know, most of my record reviewing comes from forays to the local Borders, where I sip on a vanilla latte and sample the albums. It sounds sad at first, but I'd rather spend my money on computer toys.

Oh, ok, it is sad. I'm cheap. But who could find anything wrong with listening to free samples of music before you decide to spend your hard-earned cash on the CD? I should propose this to the RIAA as a great way to improve CD sales! They could let you download songs for free and then...um....never mind.

Anyway, back to the free stuff.

This week my well-connected and generous wife got me a promo copy of one of the Johnny Cash tribute albums that's floating around--Kindred Spirits / A Tribute to the Songs of Johnny Cash.

The album starts off o.k. with Dwight Yoakam playing it cool on Understand Your Main (a pretty blatant rip-off off Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright, but apparently Bobby never cared about that). There are some neat horns that also bring in the spirit of another Cash hit, Ring of Fire.

That's followed by Roseanne Cash doing a sweet, but none-too-thrilling version of I Still Miss Someone. It's missing the mournful wail of the original, but here is the first taste of Cash poetry.

At my door, the leaves are falling. A cold, wild wind has come. Sweethearts walk by together. And I still miss someone.

Next up, Bob Dylan does Train of Love in classic Dylan style. Very cool, with a nice spoken hello and thanks to Johnny.

From there, the album starts to slide south...

Get Rhythm by Little Richard is hoppin', but Richard's voice is so strained it's painful to hear. I can picture this being a great version of the song...if he had done it 40 years ago!

Keb' Mo' does Folsom Prison Blues and completely screws it up. Unfortunately, he sees 'blues' in the title and assumes he has to change the lyrics around so you'll pity him. Where's the snarling defiant admission of guilt in "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die"? It's replaced by "They say I shot a man in Reno, but that was just a lie." And the same attitude that is the point of the whole frickin' song in "I know I had it comin', I know I can't be free," gets turned into the whining: "I didn't hurt nobody, I know I should be free." Yuck.

Travis Tritt does a perfectly boring version of I Walk the Line--a song that lives and breathes from its taut, key-changing performance more than anything else. Hank Williams, Jr., wades in with his worst Johnny Cash imitation on the song, Big River. *gack*