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STAINED GLASS WINDOWS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY, SERGEGAINSBOURG, JOHNNY CASH, JG BALLARD & MANY MORE

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Classic DEVO guitars recreated

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When Hawkwind went all new­wave

0:0/0:0

04.15.201602:27 pm

Topics: ArtHeroes

Tags: Aleister CrowleyWilliam S.BurroughsHunter S.ThompsonJohnny CashSergeGainsbourgFrancis BaconJ.G. BallardAlbert Hoffman Jean GenetNeal Fox

In 2010 and 2011 the English artist Neal Fox executed an utterly gorgeous series ofstained­glass windows in imitation of the iconography of saints found in cathedrals allover Europe. The series included Johnny Cash, J.G. Ballard, Hunter S. Thompson,Albert Hofmann, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Serge Gainsbourg, Aleister Crowley, WilliamS. Burroughs, Billie Holiday, and Francis Bacon.

Now, it’s perfectly possible that you will see these images and think, “Wow, thosepaintings in the stained­glass style are awesome.” So it’s important to emphasize thatthese are not paintings, Fox actually created the stained­glass windows themselves—in fact, he worked with traditional methods “at the renowned Franz Mayer of Munichmanufacturer” in order to produce a dozen windows, each using leaded stained glassin a steel frame and standing 2.5 meters tall.

Put them all together in a room, as the Daniel Blau gallery in London did in 2011, andyou have “an alternative church of alternative saints.” Here is what that room lookedlike:

The Daniel Blau show was called “Beware of the God.” Alongside the well­knownprovocateurs and trouble­makers like Crowley and Hawkins is a figure that mightchallenge even the most astute student of antiheroes, a man named John Watson. Farfrom the complacent invention of Arthur Conan Doyle, this John Watson is the artist’sgrandfather, described by his loving grandson as a “hell raiser” and “a World War IIbomber pilot, chat show host, writer and publisher, who in his post war years soughtsolace in Soho’s bohemian watering holes.”

Quoting the Daniel Blau exhibition notes:

As traditional church windows show the iconography of saints, throughrepresentations of events in their lives, instruments of martyrdomand iconic motifs, Fox plays with the symbolism of each character’scult of personality; Albert Hoffman takes a psychedelic bicycle rideabove the LSD molecule, J G Ballard dissects the world, surroundedby 20th Century imagery and the eroticism of the car crash, andJohnny Cash holds his inner demon in chains after a religiousexperience in Nickerjack cave.

You can order prints of some of these images for £150 each (about $214).

Many more after the jump…

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Johnny Cash and his eight­legged namesake tarantula spider, Aphonopelmajohnnycashi

Aphonopelma johnnycashi is a new species of black tarantula spider that was justdiscovered roaming the hills near Folsom State Prison. The lockdown, nearSacramento, CA, is where Johnny Cash performed two historic shows inside the wallsof the still operational correctional facility in 1968, captured on the iconic album, AtFolsom Prison.

NEW BLACK TARANTULA SPIDER SPECIES DISCOVEREDNEAR FOLSOM PRISON IS NAMED AFTER JOHNNY CASH

Posted by Martin Schneider | 3 Comments

02.08.201608:39 am

Topics: AmusingHeroesMusicScience/Tech

Tags: Johnny CashspidersFolsom Prison

Aphonopelma johnnycashi According to Biologist Chris Hamilton of the Florida Museum of Natural History,Aphonopelma johnnycashi was one of fourteen new tarantula species that werediscovered in and around western Sierra Nevada mountains. The males of thespecies are predominately black and while there is no word on how big Cash’s eight­legged namesake is, Hamilton (who also sports a Johnny Cash tattoo, becausescience), had this to say about the newest arachnid to be named after rock and rollroyalty:

Then once we looked at the genomics and looked at some of theecological constraints, we could see this species was pretty uniqueand independent from the others that it’s closely related to.

Which fittingly sounds very much much like the Man in Black himself.

After the jump,Johnny Cash sings “Folsom Prison Blues”...

THE BERNIE SANDERS / JOHNNY CASH T­SHIRT MASHUPAMERICA HAS BEEN WAITING FOR

Posted by Cherrybomb | 1 Comment

02.02.201611:14 am

Topics: FashionHeroesPolitics

Tags: Johnny CashBernie Sanders

Wear Dinner, the apparel purveyors who gave the world that wonderful BlackSabbath/Minor Threat mash­up we told you about last summer, have upped the I­want­one stakes with their new Bernie Cash shirt, which plops the face ofencouragingly popular left­wing insurgent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders ontoJim Marshall’s indelible image of Johnny Cash flipping the bird at San Quentin prisonin 1969, a juxtaposition that aptly captures a lot of the anti­establishment hostilityexpressed by some of the candidate’s backers.

The shirts are available only in black because duh. $5 from each shirt sold will benefitthe Sanders campaign.

When the amusing podcast James Bonding, hosted by Matt Gourley and Matt Mira,got around to dealing with the ultra­boring, ultra­rapey (this is according to them, mindyou) fourth installment of the James Bond franchise, Thunderball, things livened upconsiderably when they discussed the story behind the theme song.

Briefly, the theme song in the movie is sung by Tom Jones, who, legend has it, faintedupon completing the titanic final note of the song. That song had replaced a differentsong, sung by Shirley Bassey and, much later, by Dionne Warwick, which had thepretty unbeatable title of “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Albert Broccoli didn’t like that thesong didn’t mention the name of the movie, so he shitcanned it.

But at some point Johnny Cash submitted a version, which would have been muchmore suitable for a spaghetti western and is, frankly, awesome. I’m prepared basedon very little actual knowledge to assert that it’s better than any existing James Bondtheme, and that includes the one from you­know­who and “this ever­changing world inwhich we’re living.” Sure, Cash’s version is a teensy bit stupid, but when you kick intothat sweeping Morricone vibe, you can lead me just about anywhere.

A month later, according to Robert Hilburn’s Johnny Cash: The Life, Cash wrote apretty similar song for the John Wayne movie The Sons of Katie Elder, and in allhonesty it’s a little better.

JOHNNY CASH’S REJECTED OPENING THEME FOR‘THUNDERBALL’

Posted by Ron Kretsch | Leave a Comment

01.12.201508:47 am

Topics: MoviesMusic

Tags: Johnny CashJames Bond

You can find Cash’s “Thunderball” on the 2011 compilation Bootleg, Vol. 2: FromMemphis to Hollywood.

Johnny Cash - Thunderball

JOHNNY CASH AT SAN QUENTIN: TEN NEWLY RELEASEDPHOTOS

Posted by Martin Schneider | 14 Comments

12.03.201410:54 am

Topics: HeroesMusic

Tags: Johnny CashSan Quentin

1968’s Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison is surely one of the greatest live albums of alltime, but just about a year later, Cash recorded another stellar live album for anaudience of prisoners, At San Quentin. I don’t think this is a terribly controversialopinion: for my money, San Quentin is the better of the two. Cash’s longtime guitaristLuther Perkins passed away in a tragic house fire in between the two recordings, andabsent that familiar mooring, Cash’s sound feels wild, like the band’s ever teeteringon the edge of coming unglued on San Quentin. With new guitarist Bob Wootten,Cash is energetic, loose, gnarly, and just much closer to primal rock than he’d beenon the preceding LP. The version of “Wanted Man” on that album just goddamnflattens me every time I hear it, and it’s impossible to deny the classic status of “A BoyNamed Sue.” But whichever prison album you prefer, this much is surely true: thosetwo concerts probably saw the most raucous upswells of cheering and applause atthe line “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” that Cash ever got out of any of

his audiences.

That San Quentin performance was filmed by England’s Grenada television, and tennever before seen B&W still photos from the production have just been released byITV. Prints are available for sale via Sonic Editions.

More after the jump…

JOHNNY CASH’S MUSICAL AD FOR THE PRESIDENT’SCOUNCIL ON PHYSICAL FITNESS AND SPORTS, 1971

Posted by Ron Kretsch | 1 Comment

08.20.201410:48 am

You are in no position to give health advice, Mr. Johnny Cash! Johnny Cash certainly lived his paradoxes—a champion of the rebel, yet oddlyreverent of the powerful. He sympathized publicly with the margins of society whilesimultaneously invoking a kind of nostalgic, rural wholesomeness. That in mind, itmakes total sense that he’d do a public service announcement on physical fitness forRichard Nixon.

It’s not totally without its charms, either! The tune is catchy. “The man I used to be” is apretty clever euphemism for “I got fat,” and the whole thing lends itself to that wistfulreminiscing you want from a Johnny Cash. This was recorded only one year in of aseven­year period of sobriety. Before 1970 he was still doing insane amounts of pills,and engaging in super­wholesome activities like driving out to the wilderness allcranked up and accidentally setting fire to 508 acres of California National Forest.

I guess Nixon thought America needed a fitness spokesman who wouldn’t make us allfeel bad about ourselves?

Johnny Cash Radio Spot for Physical Fitness: 1971

Topics: Advertising

Tags: Johnny CashRichard Nixon

Richard Nixon’s presidency was marked by a legendarily thick air of paranoia. Dickfeared the Democrats—sure, but he also feared Jews, intellectuals, black people,Mexicans and a lot of run­of­the­mill, unremarkable whites, too. In fact, Nixon’s adviserMurray Chotiner (ironically, a Jew and former Democrat), felt that Johnny Cash mightupset the Republican masterplan, and hoped Nixon would set him straight at a WhiteHouse event.

WHITE HOUSE MEMO SUGGESTS NIXON ‘NEUTRALIZE’JOHNNY CASH, 1970

Posted by Amber Frost | Leave a Comment

08.11.2014 01:21 pm

Topics: History

Tags: Johnny CashRichard NixonTex Ritter

The fear was that Cash would carry water for Tex Ritter, a colleague and countrymusic legend who was then running for Tennessee’s Senate Republican primary.Predictably, Cash never actually endorsed Ritter, who eventually lost by a landslide.Two years later, Johnny would visit Nixon again to discuss prison reform. The storygoes that Nixon requested “Okie from Muskogee,” a Merle Haggard song satirizingreactionary “good ole boys” that Nixon most likely went over Nixon’s head. It’s saidthat Cash snidely responded by playing a decidedly bleeding heart, anti­war set of

“What Is Truth?” “The Man in Black,” and “The Ballad of Ira Hayes.”

I’d argue that Johnny Cash is a complex and powerful figure, and that it’s tempting toascribe political dissidence to a man who was ultimately kind of a simple guy with afew very meaningful pet projects. Regardless, it’s fun to contemplate Nixon beingconcerned about Johnny Cash being a potential thorn in his side, even if the threatwas only imagined. You can see footage and hear clips of the 1972 visit below, fromthe Nixon tapes. June even says that they’re praying for him.

Johnny Cash and Richard Nixon - Part 1

Johnny Cash and Richard Nixon - Part 2

Via Retronaut

Posted by Amber Frost | 46 Comments

In which one towering figure of 20th century American music good­naturedly ribsanother…

“You know at just about all of our shows, and wherever we go, weusually do an impersonation… and we had a request here tonight todo an impersonation of a rock and roll singer…”

This is funnier than you think it’s going to be.

Interesting historical footnote to this, it was Elvis who first “introduced” Johnny Cash toJune Carter. In her own words:

He was stooped down on one knee and grasping a guitar trying totune it to somewhere near the correct pitch to make a correct cordring ‐ ‘Everybody knows where you go when the sun goes down, Ah‐ummm ‐ A ‐ ummm’ and he’d strike the guitar again. Plink: plunk: ‘A‐ummm ...’ What are you trying to do, I asked. ‘I’m trying to tune thisblame guitar, honey, and I’m trying to sing like Johnny Cash’. Who is

JOHNNY CASH DOES HIS ELVIS IMPRESSION

02.10.201407:44 am

Topics: AmusingMusic

Tags: Johnny CashElvis PresleyJune Carter

Johnny Cash I asked Elvis Presley, and I grabbed the guitar away fromhim. Mother Maybelle would never let me or Elvis go on the stagewith a guitar that was that far out of tune! What’s the a‐um‐a‐um for?‘That’s what drives the girls crazy’ Elvis said. ‘Cash don’t have tomove a muscle, he just sings and stands there’. I don’t know thisJohnny Cash I said, and Elvis said: ‘Oh you’ll know Cash. The wholeworld will know Johnny Cash. He’s a friend of mine’. So the wholetour, my first with Elvis, we went into small cafes all throughout thesouth and Elvis played Johnny Cash on the jukebox while I fought offthe girls trying to get through Scotty, Bill and I to Elvis. And the thingI remember the very best was the voice of Johnny Cash singing‘You’re gonna cry, cry, cry and you’ll cry alone!’. Somehow this lowvoice just penetrated my heart and spoke to my loneliness, for I hadno lover in my life and there was a terrific loneliness in my soul. I hadvisions of myself screaming ‘Hey Porter’ and riding a lonesome trainhome.

I had been working at the Grand Ole Opry since 1950 with my motherMaybelle and sisters, Helen, Anita and Chester Atkins. I would rushhome from a tour on Saturday nights back to the same routine ofloneliness and this particular night, I found myself backstage trying totune my guitar humming Ah‐ummm Ah‐Ummm, when all of a sudden,there he was! The voice was the same. Johnny Cash took me by thehand and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to meet you’. The strangestfeeling came over me. I was afraid to look him in the eyes. It was oneof the things I did best. I never stammered and still found myself notable to say much of anything. I think I finally blurted out ‐ I feel like Iknow you already. Elvis plays you on the jukebox all the time and hecan’t tune his guitar without humming ‘Cry, Cry, Cry’ Now he’s got medoing it.

‘Why don’t you work with me on the road sometime?’ I’d like to I said.Hey, bring me one of your records. I’ve become a real fan.

I can’t remember anything else we talked about, except his eyes.Those black eyes that shone like agates. I only glanced into thembecause I believed that I would be drawn into his soul and I wouldnever have been able to walk away, had he asked me to go with him.I felt that he was the most handsome man I’d ever met. I saw himtake six encores that night. He had a command of his performancethat I had never seen before. Just a guitar and a base and a gentlekind of presence that made not only me, but whole audiencesbecome his followers. I walked away from him that evening.

The next time I saw Johnny Cash, he brought me his new record andwe did find the time to talk together. Both of us afraid to look, andboth afraid to see the lost and lonely souls that we were. For thenext few years, I never saw him where I did not remember when,where and who he was with. John told me that after seeing him onstage that very first time in Nashville, he knew he was going to marryme. I guess neither of us ever forgot that. We walked away from eachother and we both made some bad choices in our travels. I wonderedif he has as hard a time with my blue eyes as I had with his, and afterhe wrote ‘I Still Miss Someone’ I think he might have really looked.

It took such a long time of praying and of walking away when I knewfrom first looking at him that his hurt was as great as mine, and fromthe depths of my despair, I stepped up to feel the fire and there isno way to be in that kind of hell, no way to extinguish a flame that

burns, burns, burns. And so came the idea for the song ‘Ring Of Fire’.I was ashamed to tell John that I had always cared, that I couldn’tget him off my mind. Out of the loneliness came one song afteranother. There was so much hurt for both of us. And hurt for thosewe loved that only God could have pulled us out of that ‘Ring OfFire’. For the last 35 years, I have been able to look into those blacksteel eyes and feel his love, and realize he always cared.

—from the liner notes for the Johnny Cash CD, Love.

SorryThis video does not exist.

WATCH BOB DYLAN IN ‘EAT THE DOCUMENT’ (WITH JOHNLENNON, JOHNNY CASH AND THE BAND) WHILE YOU CAN

Posted by Richard Metzger | 2 Comments

02.05.201401:34 pm

Topics: MusicTelevision

Tags: Bob DylanJohnny CashThe Band

Eat the Document was intended to be a TV documentary on Bob Dylan’s 1966European tour, produced for ABC Stage 67, a prestigious showcase for musicals,documentaries, original teleplays and short films (everything from a rock musicalscored by Burt Bacharach and Hal David to a doc on Masters and Johnson to“Skaterdater”), but the network rejected it for being “incomprehensible.” The filmcaptures the madness of that tour and was shot by D. A. Pennebaker, who’d alsomade Don’t Look Back, the documentary of Dylan’s 1965 tour. Pennebaker’s versionwas called “Something Is Happening.” The retitled Eat the Document was cut by

Dylan himself with Howard Alk, but the network still didn’t want it.

Eat the Document wasn’t seen at all until the early 70s when it was screened at NewYork’s Academy of Music and the Whitney Museum. Shitty bootleg copies have floatedaround for decades (I had one that was barely watchable) but in recent years a superclean digital copy has been seen on torrent trackers, and occasionally on YouTube.Dylan was, and is, alleged to hate it, which is why you should probably watch thissooner rather than later. There’s always a bit of Whac­A­Mole going on with Eat theDocument there, I’ve noticed.

In the film we see Dylan tired, jamming with Johnny Cash, onstage with The Band(then still called The Hawks) writing songs with Robbie Robertson and wearilydealing with members of the media. Some of the infamous footage of Dylan ridingaround in a limo with John Lennon (Lennon claimed Dylan had gotten him high onheroin beforehand) is also seen in the film.

Thank you Glen E. Friedman of New York City!

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND JOHNNY CASH PLAY TOGETHER,1970

Posted by Richard Metzger | 7 Comments

01.08.201409:15 am

From 1969 to 1971, ABC aired The Johnny Cash Show first on Sundays but later onWednesdays; it was taped at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. One of the highlightsof the show was the appearance of Louis Armstrong on the October 28, 1970 show.Less than a year before his death of a heart attack, Armstrong briefly sings “CrystalChandeliers” and “Ramblin’ Rose” before Johnny Cash joins him onstage for acharming duet of the Jimmie Rodgers song “Blue Yodel #9.”

Not surprisingly, Cash knew his history. As he explains on the program, in 1930 Louisplayed on Rodgers’ recording of that same song, “Blue Yodel #9.” Louis’ voice is notheard on the number; he’s there strictly as a session musician. Louis’ wife, Lil HardinArmstrong, is on the piano. Certainly Cash selected one of Louis’ rare appearanceson a country track (if it can be so called) quite consciously to link the triumphant earlyperiod of Louis’ career to Cash himself.

Also, it gave Louis an excuse to put on a huge white cowboy hat at the Grand OleOpry.

According to Johnny Cash: The Life by Robert Hilburn,

Cash was especially proud of bringing Louis Armstrong onto the Rymanstage, where the jazz great had once been barred from performingbecause of his race. On the show, Armstrong re‐created the trumpetsolo he’d played on a Jimmie Rodgers recording of “Blue Yodel No. 9”in a 1930 session in Hollywood; Cash was thrilled to sing Rodgers’spart. By celebrating that historic pairing, Cash wasn’t just saluting hisheroes; he was subtly underscoring his message of unity andtolerance.

To hear Louis’ familiar, scratchy voice join Johnny’s yodel chorus is a delight. Jimmie Rodgers, “Blue Yodel No. 9,” 1930:

Blue Yodel No. 9 by Jimmie Rodgers (1930)

Topics: Music

Tags: Johnny CashLouis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash, The Johnny Cash Show, 1970:

Louis Armstrong on "The Johnny Cash Show" - co...

via William Caxton Fan Club (a.k.a John Darnielle’s Tumblr)

JOHNNY CASH AND THE COWSILLS WOULD LIKE TO SINGYOU A LITTLE DITTY ‘BOUT BABY JESUS

Posted by Martin Schneider | 5 Comments

12.25.201310:30 am

Topics: MusicSuperstarTelevision

Tags: Johnny CashThe CowsillsThe Baby Jesus

What could have been more square in the late 1960s than a family band with MOM init? The Cowsills became a badge for the co­optation of counterculture when they sangthe theme song for Hair, and their rep for milky white safeness was cemented foreverwhen The Partridge Family pilfered their schtick pretty much wholesale. But with a fewdecades elapsed between then and now, I think it’s no longer a betrayal of TheRevolution to be OK with them, because ultimately, they just wanted to sing, andbland content or not, they sang very, very well. And while they do shoulder someblame for David Cassidy’s career, at least the Osmonds aren’t their fault.

WHAT THE—okay, maybe they weren’t entirely safe.

Here’s a seasonally timely clip of the Cowsills on The Johnny Cash Show, guestingwith Cash on the gospel number “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.” Not only do theyadmirably hold their own backing up Cash’s rich basso voice, pay attention around2:09, at which ten­year­old Susan Cowsill peers confidently into the camera and nailsa solo verse. This, again, is a ten­year­old kid sitting next to Johnny By God CASHand singing with laudable poise. That talented little kid went on to gain a measure ofhip cred playing in Dwight Twilley’s band in the ‘80s, and in The Continental Drifterswith The dBs’ Peter Holsapple (her husband for a time). She continues to pursue anactive solo career.

The Cowsills; Johnny Cash - Children Go Where I ...

WATCH ALL FOUR JOHNNY CASH CHRISTMAS SPECIALS

Posted by Ron Kretsch | 6 Comments

12.06.201302:23 pm

Topics: MusicTelevision

Tags: Johnny CashAndy KaufmanSteve MartinJerry Lee LewisJune CarterBilly GrahamCarl PerkinsRoy OrbisonTony OrlandoKrisKristofferson

From 1976 to 1979, CBS ran a Johnny Cash Christmas special every year—it musthave been a significant Christmas tradition in many homes (alas, not my own). Forthose who remember Cash as the ultimate rebel par excellence, these specials makefor some interesting viewing. During the 1970s Cash experienced a slump in recordsales, and during this period he was a familiar face on TV, appearing as a guest star

on Columbo and Little House on the Prairie and doing commercials for Amoco.

In these specials, the sentimentality of the occasion can’t be ignored, so Cash gamelyrefashioned himself as a family­friendly country music TV host. We’re far from themiddle­finger Johnny Cash or Folsom Prison Blues; there’s a decent amount of cornylevity to be seen here. You might say that this is the closest that Cash came to a figureon Hee Haw (of course, he appeared on Hee Haw as well).

Of course, June Carter Cash is every bit as present as Johnny—the emphasis here ischarmingly on family, and many of June and Johnny’s wide­ranging clan of relativesare featured, especially in the 1976 and 1979 specials, which were taped inTennessee.

If you find yourself inundated with cheesy Christmas songs in every retailestablishment you dare to enter, you can surely improve your life by dialing up TheJohnny Cash Christmas Special, with its mix of Christmas classics and country­western fare, in their stead.

Taped in Nashville, the special that kicked it off is the most homespun of the bunch.The entire second half of the show is framed as an expansive musical visit around theCash family hearth. Earlier, Johnny and June join Tony Orlando for “Tie a YellowRibbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” and (back at the hearth) Barbara Mandrell, severalyears before she and her sisters got a show of their own on NBC, engages in someass­kicking steel guitar wizardry before singing “A Beautiful Morning with You.” BillyGraham ends with a downbeat sermon.

Johnny Cash & Family - [1976] Christmas Show [C...

The 1977 edition may be the strongest from a musical perspective, or maybe it’s justmy own bias in favor of rock over country. There’s scarcely any humor sketches, whichwould predominate in the next two years, and the core of the show is dedicated tothree of rock and roll’s most venerable heroes, all associated with Sun Studios, just asCash himself was. In rapid succession we get Carl Perkins singing “Blue SuedeShoes,” Roy Orbison singing “Pretty Woman,” and Jerry Lee Lewis singing “WholeLotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” before Lewis essays a reverent rendition of “White Christmas.”Then the three of them and Cash come together to sing “This Train Is Bound ForGlory” in a tribute to Elvis, who had died just a few months earlier. Also, Johnnyspends a good chunk of the show wearing Army fatigues (!).

Johnny Cash & Family - [1977] Christmas Show [C...

The 1978 Johnny Cash Christmas Special, like the 1977 edition, was taped in LosAngeles, and it shows a little. The guests include Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge,and Steve Martin, who as a budding superstar is given a fair amount of time for hishijinks. The high point is probably Cash and Kristofferson singing the latter’s “SundayMorning Coming Down” together.

Johnny Cash & Family - [1978] Christmas Show [C...

It’s not news that DM is very Andy Kaufman­friendly, so it was something of a shock tohit play on the 1979 special and see none other than Kaufman himself in the openingbit. For this version of the special, Cash returned to Nashville, and the presence of an

appreciative Opryland audience is a blessing. Kaufman scarcely strays from his Latkacharacter, except when he does a completely straight version of Elvis Presley’s “That’sWhen Your Heartaches Begin.” It’s well known that Elvis loved Andy’s impersonation;here’s a fine chance to see it.

Johnny Cash & Family - [1979] Christmas Show [C...

MERLE HAGGARD DOES HILARIOUS IMPRESSIONS OFJOHNNY CASH, BUCK OWENS AND OTHER COUNTRY GREATS

Posted by Martin Schneider | 15 Comments

12.05.201311:31 am

Topics: Music

Tags: Johnny CashGlen CampbellBuck OwensMerle Haggard

On his 1970 live album, The Fightin’ Side of Me, recorded in Philadelphia onValentine’s Day of 1970, Merle Haggard performs a medley of extremely convincingimpersonations of well­known country music personalities including Johnny Cash,Marty Robbins, Hank Snow and Buck Owens. His 5­minute­long “Medley ofImpersonations” includes “Devil Woman,” “I’m Movin’ On,” “Folsom Prison Blues,”

“Jackson,” “Orange Blossom Special,” and “Love’s Gonna Live Here.”

It’s hilarious. Flawless. The man truly could have been the Rich Little of Country &Western should he have wanted to go in that direction (although I’m sure glad hedidn’t). It’s even better seeing him do the imitations, as he did on this 1969 episode ofThe Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.

Wait for the surprise guests…

Merle Haggard doing impersonations (Marty, Han...

HOW JOHNNY CASH WAS NEARLY KILLED BY AN OSTRICH IN1981

Posted by Richard Metzger | 9 Comments

10.04.201310:16 am

Topics: Music

Tags: Johnny Cash

It’s well known that Johnny Cash battled drug addiction for much of his life. Afterhaving dabbled very seriously with pills in the 1960s, he managed to kick the habituntil an eye operation and a near­fatal encounter with one of his pet ostrichesprovided ample grounds to turn to painkillers again. He was in pain, and painkillersalleviated that pain. The problem is, he kept using the painkillers even after the

medical pretext for using them had long gone away.

The year is 1981, a relative lull in Cash’s career. Cash’s masterpieces of the 1960swere long behind him, and he had spent most of the 1970s in a manner that was a farcry from his outlaw image, recording a great deal of gospel, cultivating an avuncular,family­friendly image for his annual Christmas television specials, and evenappearing on an episode during the third season of Columbo. Actually, let’s give youa taste of that Columbo episode just for fun:

Columbo & Johnny Cash (Episode "Swan Song" 1...

Cash was a long way from the hefty second wind his career would get after his albumAmerican Recordings, produced by Rick Rubin, introduced him to a youngeraudience more conversant with REM than with George Jones.

According to Cash, if it weren’t for the “good and strong” belt he was wearing, theostrich would easily have killed him. The incident took place at the “House of Cash” inHendersonville, Tennessee, which featured offices, a museum, a recording studio, agift shop—and an enclosure for exotic animals, including ostriches. Cash’s return toheavy amphetamine use lasted until a 1983 incident in which Cash trashed a hotelroom in Nottingham, U.K., landed him in the hospital.

Here’s Cash’s engaging account of the ostrich attack, as related in Cash: TheAutobiography:

One such spell, the most serious and protracted, began when I tookpainkillers after eye surgery in 1981, then kept taking them after Ididn’t need to. It escalated after I was almost killed by an ostrich.

Ostrich attacks are rare in Tennessee, it’s true, but this one reallyhappened, on the grounds of the exotic animal park I’d establishedbehind the House of Cash offices near my house on Old Hickory Lake.It occurred during a particularly bitter winter, when below‐zerotemperatures had reduced our ostrich population by half; the hen ofour pair wouldn’t let herself be captured and taken inside the barn,so she froze to death. That, I guess, is what made her mate cranky.Before then he’d been perfectly pleasant with me, as had all theother birds and animals, when I walked through the compound.

That day, though, he was not happy to see me. I was walking throughthe woods in the compound when suddenly he jumped out onto thetrail in front of me and crouched there with his wings spread out,hissing nastily.

Nothing came of that encounter. I just stood there until he laid hiswings back, quit hissing, and moved off. Then I walked on. As I walkedI plotted. He’d be waiting for me when I came back by there, readyto give me the same treatment, and I couldn’t have that. I was theboss. It was my land.

The ostrich didn’t care. When I came back I was carrying a good stoutsix‐foot stick, and I was prepared to use it. And sure enough, there hewas on the trail in front of me, doing his thing. When he startedmoving toward me I went on the offensive, taking a good hard swipeat him.

I missed. He wasn’t there. He was in the air, and a split second laterhe was on his way down again, with that big toe of his, larger than mysize‐thirteen shoe, extended toward my stomach. He made contact—I’m sure there was never any question he wouldn’t—and frankly, I gotoff lightly. All he did was break my two lower ribs and rip my stomachopen down to my belt, If the belt hadn’t been good and strong, witha solid belt buckle, he’d have spilled my guts exactly the way hemeant to. As it was, he knocked me over onto my back and I brokethree more ribs on a rock—but I had sense enough to keep swingingthe stick, so he didn’t get to finish me. I scored a good hit on one ofhis legs, and he ran off.

They cleaned my wounds, stitched me up, and sent me home, but Iwas nowhere near good as new. Those five broken ribs hurt. That’swhat painkillers are for, though, so I felt perfectly justified in takinglots of them. Justification ceased to be relevant after that; once thepain subsided completely I knew I was taking them because I likedthe way they made me feel. And while that troubled my conscience,

it didn’t trouble it enough to keep me from going down that oldaddictive road again. Soon I was going around to different doctors tokeep those pills coming in the kind of quantities I needed, and whenthey started upsetting my digestive system, I started drinking wine tosettle my stomach, which worked reasonably well. The wine also tookthe sharper, more uncomfortable edges off the amphetamines I’dbegun adding to the mix because—well, because I was still looking forthat euphoria.

So there I was, up and running, strung out, slowed down, sped up,turned around, hung on the hook, having a ball, living in hell……

I couldn’t resist this one: here’s “Folsom Prison Blues” performed by Ostriches—no,not “perfomed by ostriches,” performed by some band named Ostriches.

Folsom Prison Blues - Ostriches

‘HELLO, I’M JOHNNY CASH’: THE 1976 CHRISTIAN COMICBOOK

Posted by Martin Schneider | 4 Comments

09.11.2013 09:48 am

Topics: ArtMusic

Tags: Johnny Cashcomics

In 1976 Spire Comics, publisher of Christian­themed comic books, many of theminvolving Archie and his friends, came out with “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” which toldthe life story of Johnny Cash and the start of his musical career, the breakup of his firstmarriage, his battle with pills, a jail stint, and his eventual marriage to June Carter.Johnny Cash traditionally started his concerts with the phrase “Hello, I’m Johnny

Cash” before breaking into “Folsom Prison Blues.”

The material’s hokey, of course, but the art isn’t half­bad—just like a real comic book,y’know. Not nearly as cringeworthy as it could have been. It’s credited as being writtenby Johnny Cash with Billy Zeoli and Al Hartley—one wonders how involved Johnnyactually was.

Here are some panels from “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” for your enjoyment. (Doesanyone know if Johnny ever played Pisa? This Johnny Cash concert databasesuggests that he never played Italy. Anybody know?)

You can download the entire comic book in PDF format here.

Here’s a video of a Johnny Cash fan free­associating over some stills of the comicbook. Be sure to catch the reference to President Obama!

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash : His True Life Story by Spi...

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