JOHNNY Cash died on September 12, 2003, and the first anniversary of the death of country music's Man In Black is marked by Rolling Stone's biographical eulogy: the man in black and white.

Cash, in fading health and faded eyesight but still buying too many black shirts, was recording unabated in his studio shack 47 years after his first hit for Sun Records, and Rolling Stone magazine has followed his mercurial path since the 1960s.

Here the heavyweight of American rock journalism collates the pick of its stash of Cash articles, taking in encounters in San Quentin prison and Las Vegas hotels and David Fricke's interview with producer Rick Rubin, the alchemist behind Cash's late renaissance.

Daughter Rosanne Cash contributes the foreword; the Cash family archive provides never-before-published photographs.

However, there is much more to the book than 100 "rare" picture portraits, not least the tributes from Bob Dylan ("Truly he is what the land and country are all about", Jerry Lee Lewis ("John was religious thinking, if not always religious acting"), and Bono ("We're all sissies in comparison to Johnny Cash").

All sissies will enjoy this tribute to the heart and hurt of Johnny Cash.

Updated: 08:46 Wednesday, September 08, 2004