Cover songs are a long-standing tradition in popular music, and while sometimes covers might become more popular than the original, especially if the original song is significantly older, there's usually a sense that the song still belongs to the original artist - especially someone like Johnny Cash. Yet every once in a blue moon, a cover song superior to the original comes out, or even rarer still, a cover becomes the definitive version of a song, outshining the original artist in every way. 5o123b

Artist Johnny Cash was a rare bird in the world of music. Coming up recording in the '50s for the famed Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, alongside the likes of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, his career experienced both critical triumphs and the deepest of losses. He survived divorce, several legal misdemeanors (but no jail time), lengthy bouts in and out of drug addiction, and near occupational irrelevancy by the '90s before being rejuvenated through a series of albums made alongside noted hip-hop producerRick Rubin.

At the outset of the 1990s, Johnny Cash's decades-long career as a country icon seemed to be on the decline. The 1980s hadn't been kind to the Man in Black, who had released several albums that were commercial and critical failures. His longstanding relationship with Columbia Records, who he'd signed with way back in 1958, had fizzled, and it seemed that all that lay ahead of him was a legacy of box sets and compilation albums.