JOHNNY CASH AT THE CAROUSEL BALLROOM

On 13 January 1968 Cash played his legendary concert before an audience at the infamous Folsom Prison in California. Columbia were also there to record the concert for future album release. 

A few days before the release of the album Cash played a concert at the Carousel Ballroom in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The show was recorded by audio engineer Owsley Stanley and now, more than fifty years later, the concert has been issued through the Owsley Stanley Foundation and Renew Records/BMG.

Before we review the new release we take a look at the life of Owsley Stanley, the history of the Haight-Ashbury scene and the Carousel Ballroom.

Owsley Stanley

Owsley Stanley was born on 19 January 1935, affectionately known to his friends as 'Bear' and, depending on your point of view, was either a legend or a serious threat to society. He was one of the first citizens to mass produce large quantities of LSD during the early-sixties. Kicked out of Charlotte Hall Military Academy for smuggling alcohol on to the campus he was committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. A spell at the University of Virginia saw him study engineering but he dropped out and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force where he served for 18 months before his discharge in 1958. Over the next few years he attended college, studying ballet, took a technical job at KGO-TV, relocated to Los Angeles and then returned to the Bay Area.

Owsley Stanley (Photo: Associated Press)

All the time he continued to manufacture LSD although several years later he would be arrested and served three years in prison. His lab was discovered with over 300,000 doses of LSD and in his defense he claimed it was for personal use, the authorities and the courts did not take this seriously.

He is more well known in the music business as the guy who developed the notion of concert PAs and sound systems during his work as a soundman with the Grateful Dead. He was always adding and improving on the bands sound system and started to record many of their shows, creating an impressive archive of concert recordings, many of which have been released on CD. Following his release from prison he continued to work with the Grateful Dead but in the 1980s he moved to Australia with his wife where, in 2011, he died in a car crash. As we shall discover later he also recorded other artists during his time in America, including Johnny Cash.

Haight-Ashbury

Haight-Ashbury is an area of San Francisco on the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Street, from where it picked up its name. The streets commemorate two San Francisco leaders... Henry Haight, pioneer and banker, and Munroe Ashbury, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the late-1800s.

Haight-Ashbury (Photo: Michael Ochs Archives)

The area was well known in the sixties as the centre of the hippie movement and counterculture. The Summer of Love in 1967 became synonymous with San Francisco and the Haight-Ashbury area. Media coverage of the area and the hippie lifestyle attracted the attention of youth from all over America. In the New York Times Magazine, Hunter S. Thompson labelled the area 'Hashbury' and the press covered the activities on a regular basis. Haight-Ashbury became a community of hippies based on counterculture ideals, drugs and music. It helped create a social experiment that soon spread across the country.

Psychedelic music was gaining popularity and with the success of Scott McKenzie's song San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair) and the Monterey Pop Festival, local bands from the area were soon receiving attention. Bands included Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company and the Grateful Dead. All the media attention popularised the whole hippie movement and counterculture not only in America but around the world.

However, in time the area deteriorated with overcrowding, drug problems, crime and homelessness forcing many to leave and continue their studies and life elsewhere.

The Carousel Ballroom

There were many venues that the locals would pack out when their favourite bands appeared and one such venue was the Carousel Ballroom, located at the southwest corner of Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue. It was originally known as the El Patio Ballroom in the 1920s and during the swing-era of the late-1930s and 1940s it became The Carousel Ballroom. The venue was owned by Bill Fuller who also had dance halls in New York, Boston as well as in England. It was promoted as 'America's Finest Ballroom'.

Back in 1966 concert promoter Bill Graham had opened The Fillmore at the intersection of Fillmore Street and Geary Boulevard serving as his principal venue between 1966 to 1968. The economic decline of the neighborhood along with the fact that the venues capacity was modest forced Graham to abandon this venue after only two years.

The Carousel Ballroom (Photo: Unknown)

In July 1968 he moved his main concert location to the Carousel Ballroom, which was less than a mile from the original Fillmore. He called this new venue the Fillmore West, he already had a venue in New York City called the Fillmore East.

For the first few months of 1968, before Graham took over, the Carousel Ballroom had been operated by a collective formed by the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother And The Holding Company. The idea being to create a social/musical 'laboratory experiment.' It's six-month existence coincided with the height of the Haight-Ashbury scene.

Among the acts that appeared at the venue, during its time as the Carousel Ballroom and Fillmore West, included Chuck Berry, Tim Buckley, Buffalo Springfield, Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Cash and the Grateful Dead who were regulars at the venue playing over sixty concerts between 1968 and 1971.

In 1971 Graham closed the Fillmore West with five nights of concerts featuring, among other acts,  Santana and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Johnny Cash

The previous few years had seen Johnny lost in the wilderness as far as his career was concerned but 1968 would prove to be a turning point, not only in his career but also his personal life.

In January he played a concert before the inmates at Folsom Prison, the show was recorded and the resulting album Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison would spend more than 90 weeks on the country charts with three spent at the top spot. A few weeks later, on 1 March, he married June Carter at a small, private ceremony in Franklin, Kentucky. It was the start of a successful year for Cash which would lead to the kind of success and achievements that a year earlier seemed out of reach.

Before the years end he would tour the United Kingdom twice, record a religious album, The Holy Land, play at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York and put on a benefit show for the Sioux Indians at the St. Francis Indian Mission in South Dakota before visiting the Wounded Knee Battlefield.

The year was also tinged with sadness though. In August Cash's long-time guitarist and original member of the Tennessee Two, Luther Perkins, died following a fire at his home. 

Country music fans, rockabilly fans, Native Americans, inmates... Cash had always attracted a diverse audience and on 24 April 1968 he attracted a new kind of audience when playing in front of the 'hippie' youths of San Francisco.

Recorded just a few days before the release of the Live At Folsom Prison album the CD finds Cash performing in the heart of Haight-Ashbury. A different kind of audience from his prison and regular concert performances saw him perform songs that were often overlooked in his live shows.

Backed by the Tennessee Three (Luther Perkins on guitar, Marshall Grant on bass and W. S. 'Fluke' Holland behind the drum kit) along with his new bride, June Carter-Cash, this concert was a departure from his normal set list.

Cash opens with Cocaine Blues, a song he recorded early in his career as Transfusion Blues and follows with Long Black Veil and Orange Blossom Special, all three also featured in his Folsom Prison concert and album.

As mentioned earlier Cash performed many songs not often included in his live shows. Highlights here include strong renditions of Goin' To Memphis, Old Apache Squaw, Bad News, Lorena and Rock Island Line.

From the Bob Dylan songbook comes One Too Many Mornings, introduced by Cash as, "a Bob Dylan song that hasn't been released yet," and Don't Think Twice, It's All Right.

Just before singing Forty Shades Of Green he mentions that it is a song he last performed there just before they toured Ireland and tonight it was a request from a 'very distinguished gentleman', Gordon Lightfoot. 

Following a duet with June Carter on Jackson he leaves the stage to Carter who performs Tall Lover Man and a medley of songs that included Wildwood Flower, Foggy Mountain Top, This Land Is Your Land and Wabash Cannonball.

Cash returns to perform another duet, Long Legged Guitar Pickin' Man, before bringing the show to a close with Ring Of Fire, Big River and then an encore of Don't Take Your Guns To Town and I Walk The Line.

An enjoyable concert with a strong selection of songs and great performances by both Cash and June Carter. 

Apparently a second show was recorded but at the time of this release the tapes for the second show could not be located.

In the press release for the album they write, "On it's surface, Johnny Cash's visit to the heart of hippie San Francisco in April 1968 might have seemed unexpected, but with a rare performance of The Ballad Of Ira Hayes the deep kinship between performer and audience that evening comes into full focus." Along with the Folsom Prison and San Quentin albums, Live At The Carousel Ballroom is another example of Cash's ability to give voice to the downtrodden.

The way the concert was recorded by Owsley Stanley gave an entirely different perspective to Cash's live sound from that period and is probably as close as you can get to actually being there.

Stanley's son, Starfinder, recalls, "There's an idiosyncrasy to this recording; on every other Johnny Cash record you've ever heard, Johnny is centered in the stereo soundstage. But on this one, Johnny is entirely on the right channel, and the Tennessee Three are all on the left. That's a bit weird until your brain adjusts, but you quickly realise that you've been set right between Johnny and his band."

Despite the totally different perspective from other live recordings it doesn't take long for the listener to appreciate this unusual recording technique. The sound which is excellent for a live recording and only suffers from the occasional drop-out and technical hitch. Part of June's performance of Tall Lover Man is cut short and according to the liner notes this was due to the tape running out mid-song. 

One thing I did notice is that the CD starts with Cash announcing, "Here's another song from our show we did at Folsom Prison..." This would suggest the start of the concert is missing as it would be strange to open a concert with this statement and it is likely Cash opened with Folsom Prison Blues but this is only guesswork on my part. 

Released in both CD and vinyl formats the accompanying booklet includes liner notes by Starfinder Stanley, Bob Weir from Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic's Dave Schools and John Carter-Cash. New artwork by Susan Archie and a reproduction of the original poster complete the set.

We have been starved of any previously unreleased material for several years now, I'm not counting the awful RPO pile of ****, and this is a welcome release and an essential addition to the collection.