Reviewing for "The Village Voice" in 1969, Robert Christgau said of the album, "Much inferior to "Folsom Prison" and "Greatest Hits", which is where to start if you're just getting into Cash. Contains only nine songs, one of which is performed twice. Another was written by Bob Dylan." "Rolling Stone" magazine's Phil Marsh wrote, "Cash sounds very tired on this record ('ol' Johnny does best under pressure,' he says), his voice on some songs just straying off pitch. But the feeling that actual human communication is taking place more than compensates for this. Communicating to an audience "at the time" is becoming a lost art because of the ascension of recorded music as "the" music of this culture."