Johnny Cash / Willie Nelson – VH1 Storytellers

It’s the K.I.S.S. formula (not the rock band, but “keep it simple, stupid”) — two stools, two guitars, and two of country’s biggest superstars playing live in a casual, acoustic setting, a pair of old friends swapping songs and stories. A sure-fire recipe for success? Well, depends on your expectations.

If you were hoping for camaraderie and warmth, it’s here. The set opens with “Ghost Riders In The Sky”, which causes Nelson to reminisce, “It’s been a while since we’ve done a Highwaymen tour.” Cash quips in reply, “I love working with those criminal — I mean those guys,” eliciting chuckles from the audience. Cash’s affectionate introduction to his “Flesh And Blood”, describing an afternoon he and June spent at Cedar Hill Lake in Smithville, Tennessee, precedes a tender rendition of this tune that’s one of the highlights of the album.

However, if you were hoping this felicitous pairing might produce a brilliant tribute to stand testimony to a portion of the amazing body of work these two artists have produced over a lifetime, this is not that recording. The ideal of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole is not achieved here. Given the long-term friendship of these two, you would hope for a bit more interplay between them, musically speaking. The evening starts off promisingly enough, with adequate duet work on “Ghost Riders”, “Worried Man” and “Family Bible”; but it soon disappointingly disintegrates into “You take your turn, I’ll take mine.”

It’s an uneven performance. Cash has sung more strongly and played more surely than on this night, although the stripped-down production is a great vehicle for some of his finest storytelling efforts, such as the powerful “Drive On”. Conversely, Nelson is in great form, his singing true and his playing fine, but some of his lush “pop crossover” hits (“Crazy”, “Night Life”) sound mighty thin under such sparse arrangement.