More Than 40 Years Later: Watch The Johnny Cash Christmas Show of 1977

Over the course of his career, Johnny Cash made a series of Christmas TV specials and recorded a string of Christmas records. In this 1977 TV performance, Cash is in great form. He brings special guests Roy Clark, June Carter Cash, The Carter Family, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison ("Pretty Woman" starts around 23:50), Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers. Tune in for Christmas as we celebrated it 40 years ago—with gigantic shirt collars, wavy hair, and bow ties. So many bow ties.

Truly Historic Box Set At The Louisiana Hayride Tonight Features Previously Unheard Recordings From Hank Sr, Elvis, Cash & More

Album: At The Louisiana Hayride Tonight
Label: Bear Family Records
Release date: October 20, 2017

In the annals of country music history, only one show rivals the importance of The Grand Ole Opry. For more than two decades, the Louisiana Hayride radio show was a Saturday night staple for music lovers, broadcast by Shreveport, Louisiana’s KWKH-AM from 1948-
1960. While the Opry favored established Nashville stars, Hayride offered headliners and newcomers alike an opportunity to perform. It was this policy that led Hayride to say “yes” to a young singer from Tupelo, Mississippi after the Opry said “no.” That singer, Elvis Presley, debuted on the show in October 1954 and later made his first TV appearance on the television version in March 1955.

Now an amazing and truly historic collection of 20 CD's and a 200+ page book featuring more than 25 hours of music will be forthcoming on October 20. This unprecedented collection includes rare performances from stars like Presley, Johnny Cash, June Carter, Kitty Wells, George Jones, and Webb Pierce, as well as a previously unknown Hank Williams recording that you can listen to HERE.

The compilation has been constructed in chronological sequence. Throughout the 20 discs songs are interspersed with the Louisiana Hayride theme tune (“…we’re gonna have a wonderful time…”), and with show announcements, intros, ads, comedy routines, and even mistakes, giving listeners a real sense of what it was like to hear the show on the radio, or to have plunked down your 60¢ (or 30¢ for children) for a ticket to watch it live in Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium. One of these stage announcements, in fact, is the old-time emcee Horace Logan making the now-famous proclamation that “Elvis has left the building.”

Eighteen of the set’s CDs cover the classic weekly Louisiana Hayride broadcasts that took place from April 3, 1948 until August 27, 1960. The other two CDs collect material from some post-1960 shows, along with commercial recordings made in the KWKH radio studios, promotional discs, and transcribed shows from KWKH’s early days. Among the studio-recorded commercial tracks are hits by Slim Whitman, the Browns, Mitchell Torok, Jim Reeves, Mac Wiseman, and Carolyn Bradshaw. Additionally, there are 11 “as live” studio-recorded transcriptions that feature selections from Kitty Wells, Johnnie and Jack, Hank Williams, and Curley Williams. 

Newly Unearthed Johnny Cash Concert Recording To Be Released As Album In July

Artist: Johnny Cash
Album: 40th Birthday Show: Amsterdam Broadcast 1972
Label: Video Music
Release date: July 7, 2017

14 years after his passing, the appetite for newly unearthed recordings from the Man in Black is still at an all-time high as evidenced by a new album forthcoming from a 1972 live concert performance.

On February 26, 1972, country icon Johnny Cash celebrated his 40th birthday, and did so with a full-blown jamboree at Amsterdam’s 13,000 capacity RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre.

The show featured an all-star line-up, with other country legends makingappearances, both alone and alongside Johnny. With Cash’s own band The Tennessee Three providing the backing throughout , Carl Perkins opened the show followed by The Carter Family - with, of course, wife June Carter - and the The Statler Brothers also appeared,the quartet who had opened for Johnny Cash on his TV show, which had run from 1969 to 1971.

By 1972, Johnny Cash was firmly steeped in his “man in black” persona, standing out from the typical “rhinestone cowboy” image thatwas common in country at the time. The recording featured here contains Cash’s entire performance from the evening in question andfeatures a rich mix of material from his already extensive back catalogue; indeed many Cash classics are included, such as ‘Man InBlack’, ‘I Walk The Line’, ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and ‘Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down’. With Carl Perkins joining Cash for ‘I Walk The Line’,and June Carter taking the stage too for the rest of the set, which includes a sterling version of ‘Jackson’, the song with which the couple won a Grammy Award in 1967. They repeated this feat in 1971 with the following number of the night, Tim Hardin’s ‘If I Were ACarpenter’. As the evening progresses, the entire ensemble returns for a series of spirituals, including an exceptional version of ‘Children Go Where I Send Thee’.

Track listing:

1: I Walk the Line (Instrumental) 
2: A Boy Named Sue 
3: Ramblin' Around/Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down  
4: Man in Black 
5: I Still Miss Someone 
6: Five Feet High and Rising 
7: Pickin' Time/Detroit City 
8: These Hands 
9: Me and Bobby McGee 
10: Wreck of Old 97/Orange Blossom Special 
11: The Prisoner's Song 
12: Cocaine Blues 
13: Folsom Prison Blues 
14: I Walk the Line 
15: Jackson 
16: If I Were A Carpenter 
17: It's Very Nice To Be In Holland (June Carter) 
18: Help Me Make It Through The Night 
19: June Carter Speaks 
20: No Need to Worry 
21: Can The Circle Be Unbroken (By And By) 
22: Daddy Sang Bass 
23: Children Go Where I Send Thee 
24: A Thing Called Love 

Celluloid Country - Johnny & June Carter Cash in The Baron and the Kid

Movie title: The Baron and the Kid
Starring: Johnny and June Carter Cash
Release date: 1984

A handful of old movies starring country music stars have (somewhat) recently fallen into the public domain. Summer being movie season, it makes sense to help share them here to watch at your convenience. Our fifth feature features Johnny Cash as a legendary pool shark. The "Cajun Kid", played by Greg Webb, is the Baron's long-lost son. Once they're reunited, the Baron and the Kid embark upon numerous adventures, each exploit bringing them closer.
 

TNS Video History- Johnny and June Carter Cash- "The Loving Gift"

Carlene Carter To Revisit Family Legacy On 3/25 Release Of Carter Girl

Carlene Carter comes full circle with her new CD, Carter Girl, scheduled for release March 25 on Rounder Records.  As the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith, and granddaughter of Maybelle Carter, Carlene says it has been her lifelong goal to make this record.  "The songs on the album cover three generations of Carter Family music," she explains.  "The original Carter Family (A.P., Sara, and Maybelle); momma's 'Tall Lover Man' and Helen's 'Poor Old Heartsick Me'; then two of mine: 'Me and the Wildwood Rose' and a new song about momma and John's passing called 'Lonesome Valley 2003.'"

Carlene shares writing credit on "Lonesome" with her great uncle A.P. Carter (currently in the Billboard Top 10 as cowriter of the pop phenomenon "Cups"), and the track features vocals by Vince Gill.  Other guest artists on the CD are Willie Nelson on "Troublesome Waters," Kris Kristofferson on "Black Jack David," and "Elizabeth Cook steps in as an honorary Carter Girl," Carlene adds, "singing harmonies on six of the twelve songs."  Family is represented by cousin Lorrie Carter Bennett (daughter of Anita Carter), and Carlene's husband Joe Breen, each heard on two songs.

The CD was produced by Don Was and mixed by Bob Clearmountain, both on Carlene's wish list for the project, and she says Carter Girl has "lots of fabulous musicians: Don on bass, Jim Keltner on drums, Rami Jaffee (from The Wallflowers and Foo Fighters) on keyboards. Greg Leisz plays steel guitar, acoustic, and electric too. Sam Bush is playing mandolin on three songs. Blake Mills plays most of the stringed instruments, electric guitars, and tiple, which is a kind of mandolin. I play piano, and acoustic guitars in the style of my grandma, but it's different from the 1920s! I'm really glad I was able to pull together all of these perfect people."

"Cowboy Jack Clement played acoustic guitar on 'Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow,'" Carlene continues, "and we used an old track for that to have Helen, Anita, momma, and me, along with Big John, singing background on the chorus. We built a new track around our vocals from the Wildwood Flower album we did back in 1986. Kind of a cool thing to have the technology to bring it as a part of this project."

Looking back on her own musical history, Carlene remembers, "I started my career singing with The Carter Family at 17. My first album came out in 1978."  Recorded in England with rock band Graham Parker & the Rumour, that self-titled debut was named "Tops in Pops" by TIME Magazine, while Newsweek called Carlene "a stunning newcomer."  At the album's release party in L.A., Dolly Parton whispered in her ear, "Keep on smiling, no matter what!"  Advice, Carlene says, that has served her well.

Her third album, Musical Shapes, now considered ahead of its time in mixing country and rock, was recorded with her then husband and producer Nick Lowe and his group Rockpile in 1980.  Making their home in London, Carlene spent a year on the West End stage in the musical Pump Boys and Dinettes, then filled in for her aunt Anita one night when The Carter Family played Wembley with the Johnny Cash show.  She ended up touring with them for the next two years, until she felt ready to go out on her own again, encouraged by Dwight Yoakam, who told her, "Carlene, there is a place for you in country music."

More advice came from the man Carlene affectionately refers to as "Big John," her stepfather Cash.  "He was a huge influence on my becoming an entertainer and a strong woman, not just a chick singer-songwriter, because of his encouragement," she recalls.  "'All music is good if you're being yourself,' he told me. 'Don't let labels of being country or rock ever hold you back! Just be yourself. Then you are unique and can't be held in a box musically.'"

Working with producer Howie Epstein (of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers), Carlene Carter became Nashville's homecoming queen of 1990 when her rockin' "I Fell in Love" topped the country singles and video charts, and the album was named one of the year's 10 best by TIME, People, and Stereo Review.  Award nominations followed for the Academy of Country Music's Top New Female Vocalist, and Best Country Vocal Performance, Female at the 1991 Grammy Awards.  Her dynamic personality made her a natural as VH1's first country video hostess with her own daily hour, The Carlene Carter Show, and she had another smash hit single and video with "Every Little Thing," from Little Love Letters, in 1993.

Producing her next album, Little Acts of Treason, in 1995, Carlene got her father Carl Smith out of retirement for a duet of his hit "Loose Talk" (#1 for 7 weeks in 1955), and included The Carter Family and Johnny Cash on "The Winding Stream."  Back on television with a series of specials for TNN, Carlene Carter: Circle of Song featured many friends and family members; and she made history with two other famous Nashville daughters, Lorrie Morgan and Pam Tillis, on what USA Today called "the first all-female major country tour" in 1996.  Her first "best of" collection, Hindsight 20/20, with 20 songs spanning 20 years of her recording career, was also released that year.

European tours and appearances on other albums continued, including a Waylon Jennings tribute covering his anthem "I've Always Been Crazy," but Carlene's life was devastated by the deaths of longtime partner Epstein, mother June, stepfather Cash, and sister Rosey Nix, all in 2003.  Her performance of "Jackson" with Brooks & Dunn at the Johnny Cash Memorial Tribute concert (which The Tennessean named "the show's emotional highlight"), led to Carlene being cast as her mom in Wildwood Flowers: The June Carter Story, a new stage musical about June's early years with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters.  The show ended with Carlene's emotional tribute to her grandmother and Rosey on "Me and the Wildwood Rose" segueing into "Will The Circle Be Unbroken."

Carlene continued to honor Rosey on the title track to her next CD, Stronger, produced by old friend and musical collaborator John McFee (of The Doobie Brothers and Southern Pacific) in 2008.  Elvis Costello called the record "astounding," and Bernie Taupin wrote that it was "a staggering achievement by one of the great voices and fearless hearts of country rock."  USA Today said simply, "It's great to hear her again."

Carlene Carter's songs have continued to be heard again too, as "It Takes One To Know Me," her long-lost birthday present to her stepdad when she was 19, closed the Johnny Cash box-set The Legend in 2005; and "Easy From Now On," first recorded by Emmylou Harris in 1978, was included on the 2007 #1 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend CD by Miranda Lambert, who said, "That's a ridiculously great song."  Another one of the current generation's strong female country singer-songwriters, Ashley Monroe, is a distant relative of both the Carter and Smith families, and as she told CMT News, "I grew up knowing Carlene was my cousin as well. Wore her little tapes out."  Sirius Outlaw Country radio host and frequent Grand Ole Opry guest Elizabeth Cook says, "Carlene is my hero."

As Carlene prepares for the release of Carter Girl early next year, she is also excited to be doing shows this fall where she is singing some of the songs from the CD to a live audience for the first time, including Farm Aid on September 21, which was another full circle moment for her, having attended the first Farm Aid in 1985.  Wherever she performs, Carlene knows that she is doing her part to honor those who came before her, in her own way.  "From the day I first touched a guitar or piano," she recalls, "my mom said, 'You have to carry on the legacy of the Carter Family music. It's supposed to be passed on and passed around.'"  Nearly a century after their first recordings changed the course of American music, that circle remains unbroken by Carlene Carter.

TNS Video History- June Carter- "Winkin' & Blinkin'"

A young June Carter does a little bit of comedy with Eddie Hill then sings the very fast song "Winkin' and a Blinkin'" with Chet Atkins working his magic on the guitar.

New "Lost" 1980's-era Johnny Cash Album To Be Released In March

For Johnny Cash fans, Christmas has come early as the Cash family has announced that a never-before-heard album made for Columbia records in the early 1980's is going to finally be released.

Cash’s estate is releasing Out Among the Stars, an album he recorded with Billy Sherrill, on March 25.  Thanks to Cash being somewhat of a hoarder, the tapes have been recovered from the Cash family archives and will be released as the Man in Black would have originally wanted.

“They never threw anything away,” said their son, John Carter Cash. “They kept everything in their lives. They had an archive that had everything in it from the original audio tapes from ‘The Johnny Cash Show’ to random things like a camel saddle, a gift from the prince of Saudi Arabia. Dad was always uniquely himself. And later on the world would come back around. He never modified himself. But Nashville at the time was in a completely different place. It was the ‘Urban Cowboy’ phase. It was pop country, and dad was not that. I think him working with Billy was sort of an effort by the record company to put him more in the circle of Music Row and see what could happen at the heart of that machine.”

Backing Cash on the album is fellow Hargus “Pig” Robbins and a young friend of Cash’s by the name of Marty Stuart. The 12 tracks include a duet with Waylon Jennings and two with June Carter Cash as well.

“We were so excited when we discovered this,” Cash said. “We were like, my goodness this is a beautiful record that nobody has ever heard. Johnny Cash is in the very prime of his voice for his lifetime. He’s pitch perfect. It’s seldom where there’s more than one vocal take. They’re a live take and they’re perfect.”

 

Carlene Carter Finishes Don Was-Produced Record- First Album Release In Five Years

Carlene Carter, the daughter of famed country music royalty, June Carter (Cash) and Carl Smith, announced via Twitter that she has just finished recording her first new album in more than five years:

Carter has always straddled the line between country and rock. Long known as a Nashville "wild child," the young Carlene Carter embarked on a series of ricochet romances, musical experiments, and headline-grabbing escapades that made her one of the most colorful characters in the country-rock pantheon. A stint in London resulted in marriage to rock star Nick Lowe and to her acclaimed 1980 album Musical Shapes, forerunner of a sound Nashville would come to embrace in the 1990s.

When her "party girl" era ended, Carlene returned to Nashville. In the mid-80s, she joined her mother and aunts as a member of The Carter Family. Touring with the Johnny Cash Show, Carter embraced her country roots, and the prodigal daughter began to make her own records again, this time on Music Row. In the 1990s, she sailed to the top of the country charts with such jaunty tunes as the GRAMMY nominated "I Fell in Love," as well as "Come on Back," and "Every Little Thing." Produced by Howie Epstein, the musicians included Dave Edmunds, Kiki Dee, Albert Lee, Jim Keltner, and such songs as ‘Me And Wildwood Rose’ celebrated her country music heritage.

Don Was has produced from everyone from Travis Tritt and Garth Brooks to Bonnie Raitt and Waylon Jennings. Bob Clearmountain has engineered everyone from Bruce Springsteen and Sheryl Crow to Tina Turner and the Rolling Stones.

No release date has been made public yet.

TNS Video History- Johnny and June Carter Cash- "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day"

TNS Video History- Johnny and June Carter Cash- "That Old Time Feeling"

TNS Video History- Johnny and June Carter Cash- "Where Did We Go Right?"

Johnny Cash Bootleg Album Number Four To Come Out April 3rd- New Unreleased Material Included

On what would have been Johnny Cash's 80th birthday year, Columbia/Legacy Records will be releasing a new collection of Cash tunes with Johnny Cash - Bootleg Vol. IV : The Soul of the Truth. The album focuses on songs of faith recorded in the 1970's and 1980's. It's a 2-CD, 51 track collection that gathers released and previously unreleased studio material recorded in Nashville and The House of Cash in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The album included all twenty songs on A Believer Sings The Truth plus:

•5 Outtakes from A Believer Sings The Truth sessions
•Entire 12-song previously unreleased album recorded in 1975
•Entire 10-song, out-of-print album Johnny Cash-Gospel Singer, recorded 1982, plus 4 previously unreleased outtakes

It includes duets and collaborations with June Carter Cash, Rosanne Cash, Cindy Cash, Anita Carter, Helen Carter, Rodney Crowell, Jessi Colter, and others.

It is available everywhere starting April 3, 2012.

Songwriter Jerry Leiber Passes Away

Jerry Leiber, half of one of the most celebrated and successful songwriting teams of the 1950s and '60s, has died of cardiopulmonary failure following a lengthy illness. He was 78.

Leiber will be most remembered in country circles for co-writing the legendary Johnny and June Carter Cash song, "Jackson." Additional country stars to cover Leiber-written tunes include George Jones, Johnny Paycheck, Buck Owens, Ray Stevens, Peggy Lee, Elvis Presley, The Rascals, Old Crow Medicine Show, Hank Snow, Jerry Reed, Ray Charles, Clay Aiken, Mandy Barnett and Ronnie Dunn.

With his partner Mike Stoller, Leiber was the author of such hits as "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock," "Loving You," "Yakety Yak," "Stand by Me" and many others. Leiber wrote the lyrics, Stoller the music. The two were among the first and most successful songwriters and producers to merge rhythm and blues with pop music in the 1950s.

Leiber came from Baltimore and met Stoller in Los Angeles in 1950. They bonded over a mutual love for rhythm and blues and had a profound impact as pop music began to absorb black music as it mutated into rock 'n' roll. Before they were 20, the two had written songs for such R&B stars as Ray Charles, Big Mama Thornton and Charles Brown. Besides writing a number of Elvis Presley's biggest hits, Leiber and Stoller produced the Coasters, for whom the pair produced the hits "Charlie Brown," "Young Blood," "Little Egypt" and "Poison Ivy." Their other songs included Ben E. King's "Stand by Me," the Drifters' "On Broadway," the Clovers' "Love Potion #9" and Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is."

Leiber and Stoller's catalog was used as the basis for the 1995 Broadway revue "Smokey Joe's Cafe." Their last major hit as producers came in 1972, when they produced Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You," which was later used to great effect in Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs."

They were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985, the Producers Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years later.

This Day In Country Music History

Nashville's WSM 650 posted this on their Facebook page this morning and I thought I'd share it with my readers.

On this day in history... in 1956, After Carl Smith's introduction, Johnny Cash made his Grand Ole Opry debut at the Ryman Auditorium, performing "I Walk The Line," "Get Rhythm" and "So Doggone Lonesome." Backstage, Cash also meets his future wife, June Carter, for the first time!