The double album concentrates mainly on Cash's first 15 years as a recording artist with Sun Records and Columbia, contains only eight post-1970 selections, and no selections from Cash's work with Rick Rubin for American Recordings: Cash's final hit single, a cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt", was released ten months later. The album was certified gold and platinum on February 5, 2005 and was certified 3× platinum on March 3, 2016 for sales of 1,500,000 copies by the RIAA. It has sold 1,845,400 copies in the US as of October 2019.

Amongst the 36 tracks on the compilation are two songs that feature Cash prominently but never appeared on any of his albums: "Girl from the North Country" from Bob Dylan's 1969 album Nashville Skyline, and "The Wanderer" from U2's 1993 album Zooropa.

As a testimony to Cash's wide sphere of influence on country, rock, and other modern musics and his wide fan base, the liner notes feature testimonials and 70th birthday greetings from a wide array of artists – from friends and collaborators like Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Petty, ex-stepson-in-law Nick Lowe, and wife June Carter Cash, and also from Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, Corey Taylor and Shawn Crahan of Slipknot, Metallica's Kirk Hammett, and Henry Rollins.

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