Various Artists – Kindred Spirits: The Songs Of Johnny Cash / Various Artists – Dressed In Black: A Tribute To Johnny Cash

Perhaps no country musician has honored his forebears as respectfully, while still maintaining a wholly distinctive identity, as Johnny Cash. Indeed, few American artists, genre or medium aside, cut as singular a figure as the Man in Black.

“Distinctive” and “singular” do not describe Dressed In Black: A Tribute To Johnny Cash. This isn’t to say it’s a bad record, far from it. Celebrating Cash’s 70th birthday, the entertaining tribute never lacks for reverence, warmth and craft. It does, however, want some for imagination. Partly because the individual acts share a band (an energetic combo led by the project’s co-producer, Chuck Mead of BR549), and also because nearly every cut deploys one variation or another on Cash’s early boom-chucka rhythm style, the album has a monochromatic quality that feels cramped and careful next to the expansive, dynamic, at times dangerous career it honors.

Still, most of the acts here deliver engaging performances. Mead’s chugging version of “There You Go”, Robbie Fulks’ manic “Cry, Cry, Cry”, and Billy Burnette’s beefy rockabilly take on “Ring Of Fire” succeed mostly by way of their singers’ exuberant personalities, and in spite of predictable, albeit swinging, arrangements. On the other hand, contributions from Rosie Flores, Dale Watson (who mimics not just the sound of the Tennessee Two but Cash’s booming voice), James Intveld, Eddie Angel, and Redd Volkaert are swell, yet lack much to distinguish them from the gazillion Cash covers we’ve already heard.

Other cuts are less successful. Mead and Mandy Barnett, each of whom is normally far more animated, duet on a version of “Jackson” that’s frustratingly short of both piss and vinegar. Rev. Horton Heat, a singer who’s never had a very subtle relationship with the beat, can’t do much more than romp rigidly through one more thudding bar-band version of “Get Rhythm”.

In the end, the performers who play Cash’s boogie in their own strange ways are the ones who stand out. Raul Malo gulps and swoons through the fatalistic “I Guess Things Happen That Way”, and Kenny Vaughan’s “Train Of Love” is wrenching and bluesy. Chris Knight’s “Flesh & Blood” contrasts his husky delivery with an arrangement that’s acoustic and spare, delicate and pleading. And Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison re-create “Pack Up Your Sorrows” by laying their own dusty harmonies over a Buddy Holly-like sheen.

Best of all is probably the gently rollicking, keyboard-driven rendition of “I Still Miss Someone” — courtesy of Earle Poole Ball, Cash’s longtime pianist. Is it ironic, or does it stand to reason, that the performer least content to dance in Cash’s shadow would be the boss’ own sideman?

Regardless, the determination to pay your respects by doing your own thing is a goal shared by most successful tributes. The idea isn’t to disappear into the shadow of the honoree; nor is it to obscure the honoree within the shadows of those paying tribute. Rather, the trick is to honor greatness by revealing how one artist’s distinctiveness has contributed to another’s — to reveal where shadows intersect.

Kindred Spirits: A Tribute To The Songs Of Johnny Cash understands this from its title on down. Indeed, one way many of its participants can fairly be counted as Cash’s kin — Bob Dylan, Little Richard and Bruce Springsteen among them — is that they’ve cast long, and unique, shadows of their own. Dylan makes “Train Of Love” into a proclamation of rapidly escalating torment. (“I used to sing this before I ever wrote a song,” he says by way of introduction.) Little Richard, sounding as spry and robust as he has in years, proves he still can “Get Rhythm” as powerfully as anyone in the universe. Springsteen, meanwhile, strips “Give My Love To Rose” to nothing but voice and acoustic guitar, a mournful reading that only gains poignancy if heard as a kind of thematic sequel to Cash’s haunting 1983 version of Springsteen’s “Highway Patrolman”.

Historically speaking, the disc’s remaining performers are hardly in that trio’s league, but they nevertheless prove themselves kindred spirits as well — by letting Cash’s songs come to them. Dwight Yoakam turns in one of his finest performances in years, scorching his way through a turbocharged and royally pissed-off “Understand Your Man”. Keb Mo transforms “Folsom Prison Blues” into an actual blues (“They say I shot a man down in Reno,” he improvises, “but that was just a lie”), and an especially stir-crazy blues at that. Travis Tritt offers a blistering, power-ballad version of “I Walk The Line” that reveals just what a triumph of the will fidelity can be. To varying degrees, the tribute’s remaining participants — including Steve Earle, Charlie Robison, Rosanne Cash (who clearly comprehends that “I Still Miss Someone” is about depression), Hank Williams Jr., and Marty Stuart — make Cash’s songs their own.

At the end, Johnny and June Carter Cash join Janette Carter (A.P. and Sara’s daughter) for a version of “Meet Me In Heaven”, in which the Man in Black again pays homage to the musical ancestors who inspired him. Janette provides a charming, weathered lead vocal, June provides harmony and strums along on autoharp, and Johnny, like A.P. before him, wanders in and out of the mix, “basing in” when he feels like it. Of course, even while honoring what made A.P. unique, Cash never sounds like anyone but himself. Therein lies the tribute.