FORTY SHADES OF GREEN

Continuing my celebration of thirty years as a published author and consultant in the music and entertainment genres and with today being St Patrick's Day what follows is my article on Johnny Cash's 1963 tour of Ireland.

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The year 1963 started off with the release of the concept album Blood, Sweat And Tears and would find Cash hitting the top spot again with the single Ring Of Fire, his first number one in four years. Cash was also on the road for most of the year including an appearance at the famous Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. It also saw Cash make his first full concert tour in the United Kingdom with most of the dates in Ireland but, as we shall see later, it included two concerts in England.

The tour was promoted by Tom Costello and Bill Fuller and accompanying Cash on tour were The Tennessee Three (Luther Perkins, Marshall Grant and W. S. Holland), June Carter and his manager Saul Holiff.

Other acts on the tour included The Cadets, Savoy Swing Seven, The Victors Showband, Dermot O’Brien Stellas, Johnny Grant, The Mounties Showband and Pete Brown Showband. Most of the support acts were local bands from the places visited during the tour.

It is unclear what date they flew into Ireland but on Tuesday 8th October a press event was held at the Crystal Ballroom in Dublin. They also recorded for The Showband Show at the RTE Television Studios.

The tour kicked off with a show at the Granada Ballroom in Kingscourt, Cavan on Wednesday 9th. There were no shows on the next three days although it is possible he flew to England and we look at this possibility later in the article.

Sunday 13th found the Johnny Cash Show performing in Dundalk at The Adelphi and following another day off the tour continued at the Lakeland Ballroom in Mullingar (15th), Salthill, Galway (16th), Limerick (17th) and Mallow, Cork (18th). There were two shows on the 19th in Dublin and Rush, County Dublin and the tour wound up with shows in Athy and Kilkenny.

Among the songs performed during the tour were Big River, Rock Island Line, John Henry, Ballad Of A Teenage Queen, Folsom Prison Blues and, of course, Forty Shades Of Green.

In an interview with Peter Clark following the show in Mallow, Cash talked about visiting Ireland and the song Forty Shades Of Green. “Well, it’s always been my ambition to visit Ireland and when I got my first real chance to take a holiday three years ago I naturally came over here. My wife was with me and we hired a car and drove all over the place. I casually remarked ‘there must be 40 shades of green back there’ on the way back on the plane and my wife suggested it would be a good song title. I took her up on it, scribbled out the words there and then, added the music later, and there it was.”

In my Johnny Cash Chronicle I had two dates listed of shows that Cash played in England in October 1963.

There were shows at the Astoria Club in Manchester and the Irish Social Club in Camden Town, London, most likely on 10th and 11th October. These were Cash’s first ‘real’ concerts in England his only other appearance being on the ABC Television show Boy Meets Girls where he was backed by UK musicians including Joe Brown, due to Musicians Union rules about visiting American musicians.

There is no doubt that these concerts took place as there are photographs by Brian Smith taken at the Manchester Show.

Trying to ascertain the actual dates is not so easy. Although it cannot be 100% guaranteed it is more than likely that the shows did take place on the 10th and 11th as Cash had three days off following the show in Kingscourt on the 9th October. Compared to the distances travelled in the States between shows it would not be impossible to travel the short distances from Kingscourt to Manchester and then to London and back to Ireland. Until any other information comes to light these dates will remain accurate.

This brings us to the RTE Radio broadcast Johnny Cash’s Lost Tour of Ireland.

Narrated by Jim Lockhart, produced by Tim Desmond and researched by Paul McCann the documentary gives a different perspective on Johnny Cash and also reveals his long relationship with Ireland. The documentary features comments from Eileen Reid, a member of The Cadets who supported Cash on some of the dates, and fans who attended the shows.

The documentary was made possible when a recording by Enda Shortall and his boss, who provided sound equipment for the concert at the National Stadium in Dublin on 19th October. Found in an old tin the recording is a piece of musical history which takes the listener back to the exciting days of 1963.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to the entire concert and the sound quality is excellent considering the age of the recording.

Following an introduction Cash kicks of the show with Big River and follows with Forty Shades Of Green, which receives a great reaction from the audience, and many more hits (Rock Island Line, Ballad Of A Teenage Queen, Ring Of Fire, I Walk The Line, Dark As A Dungeon) before bringing the first part of the show to a close. June Carter then takes the stage for a selection of Carter Family classics after which Cash returns for a few numbers before closing the show with Folsom Prison Blues and a reprise of Forty Shades Of Green.

Cash sounds in good voice, jokes a lot with the audience and it is a great example of  how Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three sounded in concert back in 1963.

With thanks to Paul McCann, Tim Desmond (RTE), Jonathan Holiff and Brian Smith