As Johnny Cash's slyly funny liner notes explain, this legendary trio's impromptu show in Stuttgart, Germany, last April is a first-take, unrehearsed affair — the three all just happened to be playing at a European music festival. Each man sings at least one signature tune (e.g., Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes") and they team up on several ready-at-hand chestnuts from country music's public domain of warmhearted cornpone ("That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine") and old-time religion ("I Saw the Light").

The results are mixed. Cash, as always, sounds like a comfortable, potent icon. Stuttgart was his date, and he runs the show, cooing to his cronies and speaking to the crowd in knock-kneed German. Perkins huffs through his vocal turns, shaky though somehow compelling. But it's when Cash brings on "das best" — Jerry Lee Lewis — that things really heat up. Lewis' pumping piano invigorates the band and — just as when he vied to dominate Sun Records' Million Dollar Quarter with Perkins, Cash and Elvis Presley twenty-six years ago — his self-involved hollering makes for some real excitement.

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."