“OK, we’re ready to do the record session. Are you ready?” asks Hugh Cherry, the Los Angeles broadcaster handling the announcing duties at Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison concert.

“Now I need your help,” he says to the men gathered in the prison cafeteria. “When John comes out here, he will say - and which will be recorded - ‘Hi there, I’m Johnny Cash.’ When he says that, then you respond. Don’t respond to him walking out, welcome him after he says, ‘Johnny Cash.’ I’ll have my hands up, and you just follow me.”

“Are you ready?” he directs a question offstage.

“We’re ready,” says a voice, then a brief pause.

And only then, modestly, comes the phrase everybody knows: “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” And we’re off.

Such is the real opening of “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison,” the landmark 1968 album that re-energized Cash’s career after a series of mid-‘60s setbacks. The album comes out in a 2-CD, 1-DVD “Legacy Edition” Tuesday.

In fact, that’s not even the REAL real opening - the concert actually begins with a short announcement from Cherry followed by performances of “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins and “This Ole House” by the Statler Brothers. Moreover, as Cash biographer Michael Streissguth revealed in “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece,” the famous cheer after Cash sings, “I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die” in “Folsom Prison Blues” was actually spliced in later by producer Bob Johnston.

So the “Folsom Prison” we hear, even in the new edition, isn’t the whole truth, is it? Or is it?

All I know is, the first time - hell, the 50th time - I heard Johnny Cash sing “I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die” I thought he was recalling an incident from his own life. Same with “Cocaine Blues”: “I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down.” A man like Johnny Cash - he sounded like he’d lived that life. He sounded like a biblical prophet. He could make you believe.

That dark side wasn’t all to Cash, of course. Watch this video of him mocking Elvis Presley on a late-‘50s TV show: hilarious and true. He didn’t write “I’ve Been Everywhere,” wasn’t even close to the first one to record it, but he made it his own.

I could go on and on, and I already have.

Better to listen to “Folsom Prison” once again, this time with the second show (yes, there was a second show, recorded in case the first didn’t go well). Better to watch the man in action. Better to mark October 23, 9 p.m. ET, on your calendar for “Johnny Cash’s America,” a Bio Channel special devoted to the Man in Black.

“I Still Miss Someone,” goes the title of another song from “Folsom Prison.” It’s hard not to miss the towering Johnny Cash.

- Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer

For me, the most effective scene in the 1987 movie “Less Than Zero” comes at the end. Right at the end, actually.

As the credits roll, over the terse drums on the Rick Rubin-produced track, Roy Orbison’s beautiful voice sings “Life Fades Away.” “I long to be at peace for-ev-er-more/Forevermore. Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah,” he announces coolly, and then: “Life fades … a … waaaaay.” A crescendo, etched with pain and emotion, Orbison bringing it home.

The movie, for me, is a mixed bag: soulless, drug-addled L.A. youth talking past each other, with only Robert Downey Jr.’s performance enlivening the proceedings. But “Life Fades Away”? That’s the whole movie in three minutes and 41 seconds.

At the time I saw the film I remember thinking, Roy Orbison is back. Around the same time HBO had aired his performance in the TV concert “A Black and White Night.” Not long after came the Traveling Wilburys album, where he sounded as relaxed and effective as his younger colleagues. (And they - that is, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty - were thrilled to have him.) And then, cruelly, just when his “Mystery Girl” solo album was about to be released, Roy Orbison died on December 6, 1988.

Orbison’s 30-year career is being celebrated in a new box set, “The Soul of Rock and Roll” (Monument/Orbison/Legacy), which came out yesterday. Here it is: the Western swing of the Wink Westerners, the rockabilly of Sun Records, the Fred Foster-produced dramas, the erotic growl of “Mean Woman Blues,” even obscurities such as “So Young,” which Orbison recorded for the 1970 film “Zabriskie Point.”

Bruce Springsteen often talks about being haunted by the “unearthly” (Springsteen’s word) sound of Orbison’s voice on the double-LP greatest hits Monument put out in the ‘70s. Jules Shear introduced one of his best songs, “Whispering Your Name,” with the dedication, “This one is for Roy.” (Get the acoustic version on “Unplug This”; Todd Rundgren’s studio sound of “Watch Dog” is all wrong.) Ringo Starr, who should know, once said, “Roy Orbison was the only act that the Beatles didn’t want to follow.” (The artists played together on a 1963 UK tour.)

What songs. What a man. What a voice.

- Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer