JOHNNY CASH: The Life in Lyrics To Be Published in November;
Johnny Cash and Harvey Kubernik 1975 Interview;
The Johnny Cash Show DVD;
The Johnny Cash/Bob Dylan Musical Relationship Interview With Record Producer Bob Johnston
September 3rd marks the 20th anniversary of the physical passing of Johnny Cash. Several events acknowledge his ongoing legacy.
A new live experience starring Johnny Cash will launch in October. Johnny Cash — The Official Concert Experience will bring songs and stories from the Man in Black to the stage in a new way, using video performances, words, and stories from his ABC series The Johnny Cash Show, backed by a live band and male and female singers.
The show is being produced in collaboration with Cash’s estate, and the schedule begins with an October 14 show in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It’s due to visit more than 85 cities, with dates booked through to March 2024. The spectacle will project images from the series, which was filmed at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and ran to two seasons and 58 episodes from June, 1969 to March, 1971.
Cash will be seen performing such signature songs as “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Ring of Fire,” and “I Walk the Line,” among many others, and the new show will relive the stories he told of people he met along the way, and the working people whose causes he championed.
The evening will feature previously unseen footage and on-screen narration by Cash’s only son, John Carter Cash, and there will also be excerpts from the series featuring some of Johnny’s many musical guests, such as the Statler Brothers, Carl Perkins, and June Carter Cash.
“My father’s music has resonated deeply with fans around the world,” says Carter Cash, “and we’re looking forward to bringing this music experience to cities across North America. I will help narrate the evening and share some intimate stories from my father’s personal life and career in music.”
The show is produced by GEAlive, Quatro Entertainment, Maple Tree Entertainment, the Estate of Johnny Cash, John Carter Cash, and Sandbox Succession. Full dates and ticket links are at www.JohnnyCashConcertExperience.com.
Out in mid-November via publishers White Rabbitt (UK) and Voracious/Little, Brown and Company (US) will be a new book JOHNNY CASH: The Life in Lyrics – a groundbreaking collection of Johnny Cash’s iconic songs, enriched with a treasure trove of exclusive visuals, handwritten notes, and captivating ephemera, written by Cash and Carter family historian, Mark Stielper, with personal anecdotes and commentary from Cash’s son, John Carter Cash.
According to a press announcement, “this is the first time Cash’s 50 years of songwriting have been collected anywhere. The book includes the lyrics to 125 songs and the stories behind them.
“Perhaps more than any other American artist,” states the release, “he spoke to the soul of the nation as well as to the triumphs and challenges of his own life. These pages explore Cash’s range as a poet and storyteller, taking readers from his early life and first successes through periods of personal challenge, activism, and faith. The result is a profound understanding of Johnny Cash as a man and an artist, as well as the American story he helped shape.
“This is a must-have collector’s item, meticulously crafted to illuminate the life and work of Johnny Cash.
“Within its 384 pages, you will discover a captivating display of rare and previously unseen visual materials. Photographs that preserve cherished memories, handwritten notes that reveal Cash’s creative process, and a myriad of intriguing ephemera await your exploration.
“A deluxe limited collector’s edition will also be available. Enclosed in a protective slipcase debossed with foil, it includes several frameable reproductions of rare memorabilia: A never-before-published photograph of Johnny Cash performing at a private event in Knoxville, TN, in April, 1975. A reproduction of the Cash coat of arms, hand-drawn and lettered by Cash, with reflections on its meaning. A double-sided reproduction of Cash’s handwritten lyrics for “Flesh and Blood” with ornamental drawings and a special note to June Carter. Plus, an access code to listen to never-before-released audio comments by Cash.”
Johnny Cash wrote 600 songs, and 125 of his compositions are displayed and examined in Johnny Cash — The Official Concert Experience
“John Carter Cash says, ‘There is no better way to know my father than to look at his written works. Whether the songs he recorded, his poetry, or material not published in his lifetime, he put his heart, blood, and spirit into everything to which he added a pen. I am blessed to see this book being released, and to know that his brilliance and life are being honored through focus on his greatest life creation, his words.’”
https://geni.us/JohnnyCashLyrics
Johnny Cash is one of the most beloved and influential country music stars of all time, having composed more than 600 songs and sold more than 90 million records. He received 29 gold, platinum and multiplatinum awards for his recordings and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
On August 16, 1975 in Orange County, California, I interviewed Johnny Cash for the now defunct Melody Maker inside the Royal Inn Hotel in Anaheim.
Johnny was in town in 1975 to promote his autobiography, Man In Black, and to perform a special concert for the Christian Booksellers convention.
“It covers the ups and downs of my life and music career and my problem with drugs,” underlined Cash.
“The book also contains 20 song lyrics which provide a musical guideline. The lyrics help tell the story. It was time to do the book and set the record straight. About a year ago I was approached by the publisher to write it. I spent nine months writing it and shaping it. I wrote it by hand and worked with an editor.
“It was a whole new project for me. More discipline was involved. It was my main activity for months when I got up in the morning. It was hard lookin’ back through my life and trying to remember conversations and details. Remembering some of the nightmares that I had especially gettin’ off drugs. I went through a total soul-searching experience lookin’ back. I went through all the pain again to a certain degree,” Johnny confessed.
In 1962 reading The Los Angeles Herald-Express, I read that Johnny Cash and I shared a February 26th birthday. In January 1965 I saw a Johnny Cash Shindig! taping on Prospect Ave. in Los Angeles at ABC-TV studios.
In January 1964, Johnny sang two songs on the Country and Western Shindig! pilot hosted by Roy Clark. In 1968 Cash guested on The Summer Smothers Brothers Show at CBS Television City. I later caught Johnny and June Cash at The Anaheim Convention Center, Doug Weston’s Troubadour and The House of Blues in Hollywood. I must have seen their act over a dozen times in 30 years.
In our 1975 conversation, Johnny and I chatted about songs he selected for live shows.
“In concert I sing ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down,’ the Kris Kristofferson tune. That’s so much of me that sometimes I feel like I wrote it. There are some songs that I must write for self-expression. If a song comes along, I must acknowledge it. I’ve recently recorded a song ‘Strawberry Shortcake.’ It’s about a guy who went into the Plaza hotel in New York and stole a cake. It’s a novelty song. But there are some songs that I had to write like ‘I Walk The Line.’
“I like to go into the studio with my own musicians and record my own songs,” Johnny reminded me in our encounter. “I’m open to other songwriters. I like to do things different in my career.”
In October 2019, Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, released Bob Dylan (featuring Johnny Cash) – Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15.
The label’s announcement described the product: “Disc one of Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 finds Dylan in Columbia’s Studio A in Nashville recording alternate versions of compositions written for John Wesley Harding (October 17 and November 6, 1967) and Nashville Skyline (February 13-14, 1969) while introducing a new song “Western Road” (a Nashville Skyline outtake). Discs two and three of Travelin’ Thru are centered around Dylan’s collaborations with American music icon Johnny Cash including the much sought-after Columbia Studio A sessions and on-stage performances at the Ryman Auditorium (May 1, 1969) for the recording of the premiere episode of The Johnny Cash Show (originally broadcast on ABC-TV on June 7, 1969). Disc three closes with tracks recorded on May 17, 1970 with Grammy Award-winning bluegrass banjo legend Earl Scruggs for the PBS television special, Earl Scruggs: His Family and Friends (originally aired January 1971).”
In my 1975 Melody Maker interview with Cash, I asked him about Bob Dylan.
“I became aware of Bob Dylan when the Freewheelin’ album came out in 1963,” Johnny recalled.
“I thought he was one of the best country singers I had ever heard. I always felt a lot in common with him. I knew a lot about him before we had ever met. I knew he had heard and listened to country music. I heard a lot of inflections from country artists I was familiar with. I was in Las Vegas in ’63 and ’64 and wrote him a letter telling him how much I liked his work. I got a letter back and we developed a correspondence.
“We finally met at Newport in 1964. It was like we were two old friends. There was none of this standing back, trying to figure each other out. He’s unique and original.
“I keep lookin’ around as we pass the middle of the 70s and I don’t see anybody come close to Bob Dylan. I respect him. Dylan is a few years younger than I am but we share a bond that hasn’t diminished. I get inspiration from him.”
As a teenager, in the very late fifties, Dylan, birth name Robert Allen Zimmerman, hitchhiked from Hibbing, Minnesota, to Duluth to see Cash and the Tennessee Two (Marshall Grant bass and Luther Perkins guitar) play at the Duluth amphitheater.
On February 6, 2015 Bob Dylan was honored at the 25th anniversary MusiCares 2015 Person of the Year Gala at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles.
In his stage remarks, Dylan praised Cash.
“Johnny Cash recorded some of my songs early on, too. I met him about ’63, when he was all skin and bones. He traveled long, he traveled hard, but he was a hero of mine. I heard many of his songs growing up. I knew them better than I knew my own. ‘Big River,’ ‘I Walk the Line.’ ‘How High’s the Water, Mama?’ I wrote ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)’ with that song reverberating inside my head.
“Johnny was an intense character, and he saw that people were putting me down [for] playing electric music. And he posted letters to magazines, scolding people, telling them to ‘shut up and let him sing.’ In Johnny Cash’s world of hardcore Southern drama, that kind of thing didn’t exist. Nobody told anybody what to sing or what not to sing.”
Drummer and friend Jim Keltner on November 19, 1979 invited Knack drummer Bruce Gary and I to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Southern California to attend Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming tour. Jim was in the band. I was reviewing the concert for Melody Maker.
I had a very brief backstage encounter with. Dylan. He inquired about Phil Spector. I told him I had recently done an interview with Spector for Melody Maker. Phil talked about R&B vocalists, also listing “Dion, John, Paul, Elvis, Bobby Darin, and Johnny Cash as great singers.”
Dylan then removed his sunglasses. He has blue eyes like Eva Marie Saint, Charles Bukowski, and Kris Kristofferson. Bob offered a firm handshake, and smiled, “Johnny Cash is a friend of mine.”
In Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan writes “Johnny Cash sounds like he’s at the edge of fire, or in the deep snow, or in a ghostly forest, the coolness of conscious obvious strength, full tilt and vibrant with danger…Johnny’s voice was so big, it made the world grow small…”
In the 2009 book A Heartbeat And A Guitar Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears by author Antonino D’Ambrosio, Cash business music associate Johnny Western disclosed to D’Ambrosio in an interview witnessing a Dylan and Cash exchange where Dylan admitted, “Man, I didn’t just dig you; I breathed you.”
In November 1961, Cash had stuck his head inside the Columbia Records studio when talent scout/A&R man John Hammond was producing Dylan’s debut album, Bob Dylan.
“Dylan was also grateful that Cash would constantly endorse his talents to skeptical Columbia Records executives,” Antonino underscored to me in a 2009 interview, “after the initial weak sales of his first platter, some calling it ‘Hammond’s Folly.’”
In the 2022 Bob Dylan-penned book, The Philosophy of Song, Dylan lists Cash’s “Big River,” first recorded for Sun Records, as one of his selections.
Dylan and The Band did the tune in 1967 during The Basement Tapes sessions, officially issued in 2014 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete. Dylan and Cash then cut the Cash song, produced by Bob Johnston, at their 1969 Dylan-Cash sessions, officially issued in 2019 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 Travelin’ Thru, 1967-1969.
In The Philosophy of Song, Dylan lists another song written and recorded by Cash, “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” a single from the 1958 album The Fabulous Johnny Cash.
In 1966, Johnny Cash was just concluding his own geographical relationship to the Southern California area and Los Angeles.
Before he became a living tradition, Johnny Cash spent large portions of a decade of his life near planet Hollywood after leaving Sun Records and Memphis, doing his first gospel LP when he signed to Columbia Records.
On August 13, 1957 at a party in California, Cash first met British-born record producer Don Law after a local television date who first touted Johnny about joining Columbia Records after Cash’s contract with Sam Phillips and Sun ended on August 1, 1958.
In August 1958 Cash and clan moved to California and he rented an apartment on Coldwater Canyon Avenue in North Hollywood.
Cash and his family later bought a ranch house from comedian/TV host Johnny Carson on Havenhurst Avenue in Encino in the San Fernando Valley. Johnny Cash Enterprises was located on Sunset Blvd. at the Crossroads of the World complex in Hollywood.
Cash did a slew of television appearances in the Southern California area in the sixties including the Compton-based and Hadley’s Furniture sponsored Town Hall Party program in 1960 that was broadcast on KTTV-TV.
In 1961 Johnny came to Pal Records on Sherman Way in Canoga Park for an autograph party.
Cash, and his pal, actor, singer and radio host, Johnny Western, along with Pat Shields, a PR guy doing promotions for Liberty Records, had a company together called Great Western Enterprises on Western Avenue in Hollywood.
In 1964 Cash recorded Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, his history of Native Americans concept album. He toured Wounded Knee, South Dakota with descendants of the survivors of the 1890 massacre, played songs from the LP at a benefit performance at Cemetery Hill for the tribe and helped the Sioux raise money for schools. This is four years before AIM, the American Indian Movement civil rights organization was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Cash sent out personal letters and copies of his 45RPM recording of folksinger Peter La Farge’s “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” on that album, after Johnny purchased a thousand of them from Columbia Records and mailed the entire batch to every radio station in the country. It eventually landed at number three on the Billboard Country Singles chart in 1964.
In February 1965, Cash performed “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” on a Los Angeles television program, The Les Crane Show.
Cash debuted “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” at his 1964 Newport Folk Festival appearance, following “I Walk the Line,” and Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” in his set. Johnny also famously gave Bob a Martin guitar.
Dylan himself waxed “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” during 1970 sessions for New Morning that later surfaced on the 1973 Dylan album.
In the late ‘60s Cash was selling concert tickets and guesting on TV. The success of his Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison long player gave him new visibility on the pop and rock charts.
Then an American television documentary Johnny Cash! The Man, His World, His Music, directed by filmmaker Robert Elfstrom had a US TV premier in March 1969.
Johnny and June Cash, the entire Carter family, Bob Dylan, Bob Johnston, Marshall Grant, Merle Kilgore, and Bob Wooton received vital US TV exposure. This screen gem, coupled with the ’69 UK-shown Granada-TV Johnny Cash At San Quentin documentary, resulted in ABC-TV offering manager Saul Holiff on behalf of Johnny, an hour-long pilot as a 13-week summer replacement for their Saturday night variety show, The Hollywood Palace.
In June 1969, Columbia Records issued Johnny Cash at San Quentin that hit the sales charts, aided by the LP’s smash country and pop hit single “A Boy Named Sue.”
It convinced the ABC network, who then picked up his option for a full season which was conceived, developed, directed and executive produced by William Carruthers. Stan Jacobson was the producer and associate producer was Joel Stein.
Bill Carruthers had previously directed The Soupy Sales Show on station WXYZ-TV in Detroit and had directed the Ernie Kovacs game show Take a Good Look, for ABC-TV. Carruthers subsequently directed The Newlywed Game and The Dating Game.
“Dylan called my dad before he and the staff left for Nashville,” recounted Byl Carruthers, then Billy, the son of William Carruthers.
“I had gone to work with my dad that day. He had an overall deal with Screen Gems at the time, and had an office on their lot. He had said we were going to get lunch, and then his assistant beckoned him back to the office, saying it was important!
“Two full hours went by, and I had to wait. When he got off the phone, he came out and said that he had just gotten off the phone with Bob Dylan. I asked him what he was calling about, and he said that Johnny wanted Dylan to do the show. Johnny really wanted Bob to do the first episode, and told Bob that he would be in good hands with my dad, and he wouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to. My dad said Bob was ‘feeling him out’ on the phone.
“My dad was very cool about letting me hang when the musicians were there, and yes, I got to fetch coffee and stuff for Bob Dylan, in the hour or so before the taping…
“I distinctly remember Dylan having two very sedate western-style two-piece suits laid out, and he saying to my dad ‘Bill, which one of these do you think would be best?’ A few minutes later, my dad said to the assistant director, ‘I can’t believe Bob asked me what he should wear!’
“The first show was a mindblower, as we all know, and the first season surprised ABC enough to pick it up. The sets were cheap, ‘cause they had no money. The production issues they faced retro-fitting the Ryman Auditorium were immense,” recollected guitarist/songwriter Carruthers, now in a roots music duo, Café R&B.
“For that year of pre-production and production, my dad and John were close. He showered my dad with gifts (among them a 1932 Martin Guitar, and a Civil War Colt Pistol -John had a pair of them with consecutive numbers. He gave my father one, and he kept one, so they’d each have one as symbol of their relationship). My dad was the executive producer and director for the first year. It was his show.”
During 1970-1971 the prime-time Cash slot was then helmed by Jacobson. A veteran of The Wayne and Shuster Show for several seasons, Jacobson had been a writer for Country Hoedown and writer/producer of the program Music Hop.
In 1966 he wrote and directed the Battle of Britain documentary for the Canadian Broadcasting Company series Telescope, and in 1967, The Legend of Johnny Cash.
The Johnny Cash Television Show series ran on ABC-TV from 1969-1971. Among the subsequent Cash-invited performers: Louis Armstrong, Bill Monroe, Dusty Springfield, Judy Collins, The Monkees, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Stevie Wonder, Tony Joe White, Homer & Jethro, the Everly Brothers, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Derek and The Dominos, Roger Miller, Faron Young, Charley Pride, Loretta Lynn, Marty Robbins, Mickey Newbury, Neil Diamond, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Waylon Jennings, George Jones and Doug Kershaw.
“One reason country music has expanded the way it has is that we haven’t let ourselves become locked into any category. We do what we feel,” reinforced Cash in our 1975 dialogue.
Johnny gave a forum to former HUAC blacklist victim Pete Seeger who sang the anti-war song “Big Muddy,” and Canadian singer/songwriter and social activist, Buffy Saint-Marie, a member of the Cree First Nation, who did Peter La Farge’s “Custer” on the program. Cash also refused to edit the word “stoned” from Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”
In his review of The Johnny Cash Show in the June 12, 1969 issue of Great Speckled Bird, the counterculture underground newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, Gene Guerrero reviewed the ABC-TV/Screen Gems initial broadcast.
“TV CASHES IN. OCCASIONALLY, television gives the viewer a glimpse of its potential as a creative medium. Usually, as with the Smothers Brothers Show, it is a fleeting glimpse before the owners of the public airways get uptight or commercialism subverts the creativity. With the inauguration of the Johnny Cash Show, country music has finally made it to network television. One can only hope and pray that it will take a couple of seasons before these corrupting influences set in.
“Dylan sang a couple of songs off his new album including ‘Girl From the North Country’ which he sings with Cash. In a non-contrived way Dylan and Cash singing together remind you of two kids practicing for their first recital. In this time of super-slick entertainers, that’s very refreshing.”
However, Johnny said that TV obligations of his ABC-TV series hampered his creativity.
“It cut down on my touring, it became too confining,” Cash explained in our 1975 conversation.
“We stayed in Nashville for two-thirds of the time. I really didn’t enjoy it all that much. If it was kept loose and spontaneous it could have been great. But we had to do the same song every eight or ten times before they would accept it. The show lost its feel and honesty. Consequently, I lost a lot of interest in it,” stressed Johnny.
In September 2006 a 2-disc DVD set of The Best of the Johnny Cash Show, hosted by Kris Kristofferson, was distributed by CMV/Columbia Legacy, a division of Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
The DVD restoration process was produced and directed by Michael B. Borofsky. Editor and Producer Is Christine Mitsogiorgakis. Executive Producers are Lou Robin, Cash’s longtime manager, and John Carter Cash, his son with June Carter Cash.
The four-hour DVD incorporates 66 clips integrating highlights and select performances, plus new interviews with Tennessee Three bassist Marshall Grant, Hank Williams Jr., musical arranger Bill Walker, and hairstylist Penny Lane. The show’s regulars included Johnny and June Cash, the Tennessee Three, Mother Maybelle and The Carter Sisters, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers.
Most of the programs were recorded on two-inch quad videotape, a non-existent format these days, and in some cases a post-production “show master” was also available, or even joining the two together. Every master tape was baked like the audiotapes and played back on a machine to digitally process the material without tampering or colorization. The results were transferred for the final phase, and the creation of stereo mixes (where only mono recordings existed) and 5.1 Surround Sound.
Bob Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” is the first selection on The Johnny Cash Show DVD coupled with “Girl from the North Country,” his teaming with Cash, the debut track on Nashville Skyline, recorded in February 1969.
The DVD compilation incorporates Cash’s version later on, of Dylan’s “Wanted Man,” the tune Cash and band had covered in their February 1969 San Quentin repertoire.
Cash contributed the back jacket text to Nashville Skyline which won a 1970 Grammy Award for Best Album Liner Notes.
It was in June 1967 when Columbia Records staff producer Bob Johnston replaced Don Law at the Nashville based company producing Cash.
Johnston’s production acumen and label machinations on behalf of Cash in the 1968 and ’69 time period resulted in two California penitentiary location-dependent live recordings: Johnny Cash at San Quentin and Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison.
Johnston’s credits include Leonard Cohen’s Songs From a Room and Songs of Love and Hate, and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, John Wesley Harding, and Nashville Skyline. He worked on Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends.
Johnston was born in 1932 in Hillsboro, Texas. His career began as a songwriter eventually holding a staff writing position at Elvis Presley’s Hill & Range Music and often reviewed potential Presley demos and songs earmarked for his movies in 1964 and 1965. Bob co-wrote with Charlie Daniels ‘It Hurts Me,’ the flip side of Presley’s hit “Kissin Cousins” before he joined Columbia Records in 1965.
I met Johnston and producer/label executive Jimmy Bowen in July 1978 at MCA Records on Lankershim Blvd. in Universal City when I was West Coast Director of A&R for the label.
At the time Johnston was producing Joe Ely’s Down on the Drag. We went down the street to see Ely at the Palomino Club.
“When I took over Cash, he didn’t hit the country charts,” declared Johnston in a 2007 interview with me.
“Like I said on the back of the Folsom Prison album liner notes, no one for eight years would let him go there to record live until he got me, and I said, ‘let’s do it’ I picked up the phone and called Folsom and San Quentin,” Bob remembered.
“The reason the Folsom album was made first is because the Folsom warden answered first, simple as that. I got the warden, Duffy, and I handed Johnny the telephone and left. When we did Folsom there was a guy who was going to introduce Johnny on stage in front of the cons and everyone standing up.
“I said ‘bullshit!’ And told Johnny to go walk out there now! They are not even sitting down good. Walk out there and jerk your head around and say, ‘Hello. I’m Johnny Cash’ and it don’t matter what the fuck you record. And he said ‘Get outta my God damn way!’ And he didn’t usually cuss. But he pushed people away went out there and the God damn place became unglued!
“I had the engineer Neil Wilburn, did the Cash Live At Folsom Prison album with him. And he was a genius behind all that shit. I had a great thing with anybody who was a genius!
“Leonard [Cohen]was the best I’d ever heard. And Dylan was the best I’d ever heard. Simon was the best I’d ever heard and Cash was the best I’d ever heard. And all those fuckin’ people were the best I’d ever heard.”
“I’ll tell you something else I did when recording Dylan, Cash and Cohen,” emphasized Johnston. “Everybody else (at the time) was using one microphone. What I did was put a bunch of microphones all over the room and up on the ceiling. I would use the echo. I could do that as much as I wanted. I wanted it to sound better than anything else sounded ever, and I wanted it to be where everybody could hear it. And that’s the way that we did it. I always had 4 or 8 speakers all over the room and I had ‘em going. The louder I played it the better it sounded to me.
“I had Cash in the Columbia Music Row studio [February 1969] and thought it would be nice to get Dylan in there, too and I didn’t say anything to them. Cash was in the studio and Dylan came in. ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Gonna record.’ ‘Well, I’m recording too.’
“So, they invited me to dinner, but I said ‘no thanks.’ And when they returned, I had a café set up outside with microphones and their guitars, and they came in for two hours, like a nightclub, looked at the lights, sort of smiled at each other. June Carter Cash was there. We did like 18 tracks.
“When we got through with Nashville Skyline, I helped Cash get his TV show,” Johnston reminded me.
“Cash called me a little bit later, and said, ‘Listen. I got one thing. Will you get Dylan? If I had Dylan on my show, it would be a big success. And if I don’t it will be a fuckin’ failure.’ And he said, ‘Will you get him?’ ‘And I said, ‘no.’ ‘You won’t?’ ‘No.’ ‘You won’t. Why not? ‘But I’ll ask him. But I can’t get anybody. I don’t want to get anybody.’ That’s the kind of truth I had with all of those people. Cash said, ‘Will you ask?’ ‘Yeah.’
“So, I was in Ft. Worth Texas, which was my home town, and called Dylan, and I said, ‘Man, Cash just called me and he’s got a TV show that we’ve been working on and if he’s got you, it will be a success and if he doesn’t it will be a fuckin’ failure. That’s what he told me.’ And, Dylan said, ‘well, man, I’d like to…’ ‘And I thought that’s the end of that, he’s so busy… And he said, ‘I’ve got nothing to wear.’ ‘I said, ‘I’m in Ft. Worth Texas. Let me get you a cowboy suit.’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘What size do you wear and what color?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘I said, don’t fuckin’ worry about it. I’ll take care of it.’
“I got him a pin stripped white one that was too long come over his wrist, and a white one that was too short. That’s how it started.”
That year, Columbia Records shipped The Johnny Cash Show, a live album, coinciding with the TV series, which was not promoted to retailers as a soundtrack. The LP is an unusual product as the Columbia label was not affiliated with the competing CBS-TV network.
I am the proud owner of a white label Columbia Records Radio Station Service Not For Sale promotional copy.
(Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon and 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972. He has also written titles on Leonard Cohen and Neil Young.
Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. Harvey and Kenneth are writing doing a book for 2024 publication by Insight Editions, Images That Rocked the World (The Music Photography of Ed Caraeff).
Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.
His writings are in several book anthologies, including, The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. Harvey wrote the liner notes to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, The Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.
On October 16, 2023, ACC ART BOOKS LTD is publishing THE ROLLING STONES: ICONS. 312 pages. $75.00. Introduction is penned by Harvey Kubernik. Spanning six heady decades, and countless tours and album covers, this thrilling portfolio features imagery from some of the most eminent names in photography, alongside the photographers’ own memories and reflections. Includes photographs by Terry O’Neill, Gered Mankowitz, Linda McCartney, Ed Caraeff, Ken Regan, Douglas Kirkland, Dominque Tarle and founding member, bassist and photographer, Bill Wyman. Each photographer has selected images for their chapter and written an introductory text about their time working with the band
During 2006 Kubernik spoke at the special hearings initiated by The Library of Congress held in Hollywood, California, discussing archiving practices and audiotape preservation.
In 2017 Harvey appeared at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of their Distinguished Speakers Series.
During 2023, Harvey Kubernik, photographer Henry Diltz and authors Eddie Fiegel, Barney Hoskyns and Chris Campion were filmed by French director France Swimberge for her Mamas & Papas documentary. Broadcast scheduled on the European arts television channel, Arte. Kubernik is the consultant for the film.
Kubernik was an on-screen interview subject for director Matt O’Casey in 2019 on his BBC4-TV digital arts channel Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird. The cast includes Christine McVie, Stan Webb of Chicken Shack, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Christine’s family members, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Mike Campbell, and Neil Finn.
Harvey was lensed for the 2013 BBC-TV documentary on Bobby Womack Across 110th Street, directed by James Meycock. Bobby Womack, Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones, Regina Womack, Damon Albarn of Blur/the Gorillaz, and Antonio Vargas are spotlighted.
Kubernik served as Consulting Producer on the 2010 singer-songwriter documentary, Troubadours: Carole King/James Taylor & the Rise of the Singer-Songwriter, directed by Morgan Neville. The film was accepted at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in the documentary category and PBS-TV broadcast the movie in their acclaimed American Masters series.
In 2019 Harvey appeared as an interview subject in the David Tourje-directed short documentary entitled John Van Hamersveld: Crazy World Ain’t It that had its World Premiere in 2019 at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. The landmark colorful career of illustrator, designer, artist and photographer Van Hamersveld is discussed by Harvey, visual artist Shepard Fairey, world champion surfer Shaun Thompson, Jeff Ho of the legendary Zephyr Surf Team, graphic designer Louise Sandhous and others. Van Hamersveld designed the iconic Endless Summer visual image properties and album covers for the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, John Hiatt, PIL, Blondie and the 2005 Cream reunion concert.
During 2014, Kubernik was a consultant and interview subject for an hour-long examination of the musical legacy of Los Angeles for the Australia television series Great Music Cities for Australian subscription television broadcaster XYZnetworks Pty Ltd (www.xyznetworks.com.au). Slash, Brian Wilson, Steve Lukather and Keith Richards were also lensed for the project. Senior Producer is Wade Goring for Australian music television channel MAX www.maxtv.com.au.
Kubernik also appears as a screen interview subject for director/producer Neil Norman’s GNP Crescendo documentary, The Seeds: Pushin’ Too Hard. Jan Savage and Daryl Hooper original members of the Seeds participated along with Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys, Iggy Pop, Kim Fowley, Jim Salzer, the Bangles, photographer Ed Caraeff, Mark Weitz of the Strawberry Alarm Clock and Johnny Echols of Love. Miss Pamela Des Barres supplied the narration).
