Johnny Cash's Highest-Grossing Albums Of All Time, Ranked
To his hardcore faithful, Johnny Cash is recognized as a bona fide country music artist, a cross between a prophetic minstrel and an irreverent outlaw. But to folks who also follow other genres, Cash was a penultimate voice in American culture, with a massive catalog of hits that included Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and dozens of other chart-toppers.
His material not only spoke for the disenfranchised but offered profound words of wisdom that redefined the conscience of a country grappling with everything from human rights to global conflict. Those songs also made him one of the most prosperous recording artists of all time, with a number of successful outings. Taking tabulations from Billboard, Soundscan, and the Recording Industry Association of America, these are among the highest-grossing albums ever put out by the musician known as The Man In Black.
10 Ring of Fire
Released in 1963 and eventually hitting the half-million unit mark four years later, Ring of Fire was technically a compilation, although most of the material came from singles from his earlier years that never made it onto the album.
The last single on the collection, Ring of Fire, was chosen as the flagship tune to promote the outing, proving that Mariachi horns can add a unique flavor to a country classic. Bonus tracks include a couple of entries from a hard-to-find 1959 extended play release called Johnny Cash Sings "The Rebel - Johnny Yuma."
9 I Walk The Line
Johnny Cash wrote I Walk the Line back in 1956 as a slow ballad, but by the time he decided to re-record it eight years later, its pacing was much faster and more rhythmic. So infectious was the song, intended as a declaration of marital fidelity, it became a big enough hit to warrant titling the album that sold 500 thousand copies.
The piece was also appropriate to be used as the title of the 2005 award-winning movie chronicling the relationship between Cash and his wife June Carter. It starred Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as Carter.
8 Hello I'm Johnny Cash
Suitably, Cash picked his signature live show introduction to grace the title of this 1970 outing that includes Cash and Carter performing a duet on If I Was A Carpenter that netted the couple a Grammy for best group country performance.
Sadly, despite earning gold status at 500,000 copies, the album would also be one of Cash's last successful outings of the '70s; it would take a scrum with a few outlaws more than a decade later to bring him back into the spotlight.
7 The Johnny Cash Show
Back when the closest thing that network television had to reality TV was the national news, the biggest trend on the tube was variety programming, with easy-listening celebs from Sonny & Cher to Andy Williams hosting a mixed bag of comedy and musical sets.
The Johnny Cash Show stood out from the rest with a decidedly more country format, when the show broadcast from Nashville's famed Ryman Auditorium and ran on ABC from 1969 to 1971. Musical excerpts that made it onto this 1970 companion album stayed away from the hits but still managed to sell half a million copies.
6 American V: A Hundred Highways
Released in 2006, three years after Cash died from complications related to diabetes, this fifth outing in the singer's American series was proof that The Man In Black's legacy remained solid.
Earning gold status after hitting the half-million milestone shortly after it was issued, A Hundred Highways aptly describes the directions that Cash had taken throughout the American Records series. Proof of that was avoiding the stigma of relying strictly on country material. He even covered material by rocker Bruce Springsteen, Canadian folkie Gordon Lightfoot, and pop poet Rod McKuen.
5 Highwayman
As a rejection against the Nashville country music industry's cookie-cutter mentality, Cash teamed up with fellow country outcasts Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson to collaborate on this million-seller released in 1985.
Inspired by a song called The Highwayman, which was originally written for country singer Glen Campbell by Jimmy Webb, Cash liked it so much that the piece doubled as a running theme with the foursome. Highwayman would be the first of three albums involving the artists, who eventually decided to call themselves The Highwaymen when they played a few shows on the road.
4 American IV: The Man Comes Around
Issued in 2002, this would turn out to be Johnny Cash's final record to be released when he was still alive.
He won over generations of music lovers, especially young adults who were were blown away by his treatment of rock-oriented fares like Nine Inch Nails' Hurt and Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus, while the boomer set listened in admiration to how he approached other works by The Beatles, Eagles, and Simon & Garfunkel. It didn't take long for the record to hit a million copies in sales.
3 Johnny Cash at San Quentin
Two of three live albums ever recorded by Cash were staged in prisons, which marked a first for the music industry. This one, recorded in 1969 a year after a previous jail venture, turned out to be the second biggest-selling record in The Man In Black's career, cracking the three-million unit mark.
The album contains hits like I Walk the Line, the hilarious A Boy Named Sue, and a rendition of Folsom Prison Blues played not once, but twice. It's obviously hard to say no to an audience of convicts.
2 Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison
By far the most successful record Cash ever issued, this live outing at California's notorious incarceration institution in 1968 was a project that Columbia Records didn't want made. Cash fought tooth and nail with label executives to play the joint with tape machines rolling in the back to document the event.
The label finally relented and to a captive audience in January, Cash delivered the hits to his inmate faithful, many of them singing along to the likes of Folsom Prison Blues, The Long Black Veil, and Blue Suede Shoes. The release resulted in a lot of green for The Man In Black, at last count selling more than 3.8 million units, including nearly a million issued posthumously.
1 Compilations
Despite his legacy, Cash was never a mega-million seller to the extent of Beyonce, The Beatles, or Michael Jackson. Additionally, from his first release in 1957 until his final outing when he died in 2003, Cash experienced plenty of dry spells throughout his lengthy career.
After he died, labels churned out his catalog, selling millions of copies, most of them compilations. In fact, those collections outnumbered his original studio and live recordings in his massive discography, including a few Best Of releases and at least three Greatest Hits volumes. At last tally, the total copies generated by those frequently-released compilations stood in the neighborhood of 14 million and still counting.
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