My original fear that the disc would end up being a collection of bass heavy, dance hall songs that had little or nothing to do with the original music was thankfully unfounded as each of the teams involved with doing a re-mix found a way to hang onto the essence of the original song. That doesn't mean that they sound like the original material, for although there's a few, like the version of "Big River" done by the duo Count De Money, which have kept the song pretty much intact and merely added some touches, there are others where the song is virtually unrecognizable. While that may shock purists, I would ask that you think about what you prefer when you hear a band cover someone else's material. Would you rather hear them do a faithful, note by note reproduction of the original song, or would you rather hear them re-interpret it?
So instead of re-interpreting the songs in the traditional way, by recording them anew with new musicians, what these people have done is use technology. Some of them have laid down new vocal tracks, added in other instruments, or augmented the rhythm with beat boxes and drum machines, but they've all stretched and pulled the original material like taffy to change the sound and texture of the material. What I found especially interesting was the number of ways they found to carry out this process, and how they were able to make each of them work as well as they did.
I'm sure one of the last people most would expect to hear doing a Cash song would be hip hop performer Snoop Dog, but not only did he contribute a version of "Walk The Line", he was also co-executive producer for the project. He set up his version of the song as a duet between himself and Cash, so that he'd rattle off lines that he built based around the song, and then cut to the original version with Johnny singing a verse. There are some wonderful shots of Snoop Dog on the DVD out at Cash's cabin looking both completely incongruous wearing his LA Lakers' singlet, but somehow also looking right at home at the same time.
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