2006 is going to be the year in which you hear more of Johnny Cash than you ever have before. He’s going to be unavoidable…like Ray Charles was in 2005.

But where Charles cut a duets album of middling quality, Johnny Cash spent the last decade of his life making five American albums, with a solid third of this best of compilation coming from that era where he worked on stripped-down slices of brilliance with Rick Rubin.

It’s amazing to think that the best producers of two very different eras found the spots that marked Cash’s moments of genius. First Sam Phillips in the mid-1950s, then Rubin in the 1990s. It’s really quite astonishing. That’s almost certainly part of what makes Ring of Fire such a winner – the songs are simply awesome, full of nuance, infused with aggression, booze and Cage’s warm baritone. The closer, a cover of Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” is incredible, and is the flip to “Walk the Line”.

Speaking of which, with the Joaquin River-starring biopic due in cinemas, Ring of Fire has unsurprisingly perfect timing to raise interest in the best moments of Cash, from San Quentin to Soundgarden. The compilation aspect of Ring of Fire is easy to get lost in, despite the vagaries of sound, as the one consistency is Cash.