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| Photograph: Paul Natkin |
JOHNNY CASH - THE MERCURY ALBUMS
First published 26 October 2020
After almost thirty years Columbia/CBS decided that they
were not going to renew Johnny Cash's contract. The decision angered many
people including Dwight Yoakam who said at the time, "The man's been there
thirty fucking years making them money."
Fortunately for him there was a label prepared to sign him
and it was Steve Popovich that brought him to Mercury Records. "I really
believe in you, " Popovich told Cash during a meeting at The House of
Cash. "Our company believes in you. We feel, with the right record that we
can help support what you're trying to do here and get some strong records,
some hit records." Cash signed with the label in 1986.
Despite releasing strong albums which it has been reported
sold little over 200,00 copies in total, it soon became clear that the label
were more interested in pandering to the younger artists in their cowboy hats
and boots who could be seen everyday on Country Music Television.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2020/10/johnny-cash-mercury-albums.html
JOHNNY CASH - THE OUTTAKES
First published 2 December 2020
Having already released The Everly Brothers The Outtakes and Janis Martin The Outtakes which, as the titles suggest, contained outtakes and false starts, in early 2007 Bear Family Records turned their attention to Johnny Cash with a three-CD set of outtakes, false starts and studio chat from the Sun Records period. I was fortunate to have been approached to compile the set and write the liner-notes. In this article I will look back at the work that was involved in putting the set together.
Towards the
end of 2006 I was approached by Richard Weize, owner of Bear Family Family, who
asked if I would be interested in putting together the set and, of course, I
agreed.
My first
task was to work out which outtakes had already been issued on the Man
In Black 1954-1958 and other releases and compile a spreadsheet
detailing where these could be found. I then received nine CDs with various
outtakes, false starts and studio chat that also contained some material that
had been out before. Unfortunately there were many Sun tracks for which no
alternates have survived although what was there made interesting listening.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2020/12/johnny-cash-outtakes.html
HELLO, I'M JOHNNY CASH
First published 26 January 2021
There was a break during which time Cash recorded with Bob
Dylan during his own sessions for his Nashville Skyline album, and
performed his famous concert at San Quentin. Recording continued in July and
wound up early in September
Musicians and vocalists on the sessions were Bob Wootton
(guitar), Carl Perkins (guitar), Marshall Grant (bass), W. S. Holland (drums),
Norman Blake (dobro) and The Carter Family (vocals).
The album opens with Southwind which
recalls the boom-chicka-boom style he had created back in the fifties at Sun
Studios. It captures two of Cash’s favourite themes, trains and heartbreak. It
features some blistering guitar by new boy Bob Wootton and great drumming from
W. S. Holland and sets the standard for the rest of the album.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2021/01/hello-im-johnny-cash.html
FORTY SHADES OF GREEN
First published 17 March 2021
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.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2021/03/forty-shades-of-green.html
REMEMBERING LOU ROBIN
First published 19 May 2021
So sad to hear that Lou Robin has passed away in California
a few days before his 91st birthday. For more than thirty years he managed
the career of Johnny Cash and continued looking after Cash's legacy following
his death in 2003.
Lou was always kind and supportive of my work on the Fanzine, in which I interviewed him, and also my book, for which he wrote the foreword to the first edition and is reproduced below. He was always there to answer my constant email requests and when I gave up the Fanzine a few years ago he wrote a lovely email thanking me for my work.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2021/05/remembering-lou-robin.html
HURT - THE SONG AND VIDEO
First published 7 July 2021
Throughout
2001-2002 Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin were working on songs for his next album.
Like their previous collaborations several cover versions were attempted
including Bridge Over Troubled Water, In My Life, Desperado and Personal
Jesus. However the standout track on what would become American IV:
The Man Comes Around would be his cover of the Nine Inch Nails
song Hurt.
Cash’s
version became one of the most talked about songs of 2003 and there is no doubt
that it stands as one of the greatest cover versions of his entire career.
However, it was nearly never recorded.
As had
happened with Rusty Cage a few years earlier Cash was unsure about
the song. When he first heard it, and especially the tune itself, he told
Rubin, “I can’t do that song, it’s not my style.” Rubin suggested trying it a
different way and laid down a track which Cash felt would work.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2021/07/hurt-song-and-video.html
JOHNNY CASH AT THE CAROUSEL BALLROOM
First published 30 October 2021
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.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2021/10/johnny-cash-at-carousel-ballroom.html
JOHNNY CASH FANZINE
First published 26 February 2022
Today would have been Johnny Cash's 90th Birthday and to
celebrate I thought I would look back at my work on the Johnny Cash Fanzine
including some highlights, comments from family and friends when I ceased
publication and an interview that I did a few years ago. I am also offering a
special offer on the Fanzine.
I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that when I published
the first issue of Johnny Cash-The Man in Black in December
1994 that it would run for almost twenty-five years.
Of course,
it was down to the subscribers, the Cash family, band members, producers,
photographers, management and record companies whose support made it all
possible.
The decision to cease publication in 2019 was not an easy one to make and I wish I could have celebrated by reaching one hundred issues but alas it wasn’t to be. Health issues and a decline in membership signalled the end. However, I am proud of what I achieved and hope everybody enjoyed the journey with me.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2022/02/johnny-cash-fanzine.html
THE FABULOUS JOHNNY CASH
First published 15 November 2022
Johnny
Cash's debut album for his new label Columbia was released in November 1958 and
to celebrate this we look back at the recording, release and success of the
album The Fabulous Johnny Cash.
A week after his last session for Sun Records, Johnny Cash was at the Owen Bradley Studios in Nashville cutting his first sides for his new label, Columbia. This first session produced six songs and a few weeks later on 8 August a further ten tracks were recorded during two sessions on that day. To enable them to have enough tracks for their first album and singles a further session was held five days later with nine more songs successfully recorded.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-fabulous-johnny-cash.html
THE 'SUMMER CASH' CAMPAIGN
First published 18 January 2023
When Shelby Singleton purchased the Sun Records Label in
1969, he started one of the most intensive reissue campaigns ever. In this
article, originally published in The Man in Black (Issue #75 -
June 2013), we look at the buyout and the subsequent Johnny Cash releases on
the Sun International label between 1969 and 1971, a time when Cash’s Columbia
career was at an all-time high.
By the mid-sixties Sun Records had been consigned to the past with Phillips being approached by various record companies prepared to buy the label. One of the most persistent was CBS/Columbia who, with Cash on their label, were keen to get all the Sun masters out of circulation. As far back as 1962 Phillips had considered a deal with Mercury Records whereby Sun would act as a production company for the label.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-summer-cash-campaign.html
JOHNNY CASH - THE BILLY SHERRILL SESSIONS
First published 17 May 2023
When one thinks of Johnny Cash’s producers there are many
names that come to mind. Of course high on the list is Sam Phillips, who
founded Sun Records, and gave Cash his first break. Also at Sun Records was
‘Cowboy’ Jack Clement, whose name would crop up regularly throughout Cash’s
career. While his move to Columbia Records saw him working with Don Law and
Frank Jones and in the late 1960s Bob Johnston who was behind the legendary
prison albums. Into the 1970s and we find Larry Butler and Charlie Bragg working
with Cash while the following decade would see Brian Ahern and band members
Earl Poole Ball and Marty Stuart taking over the role. Of course any list would
not be complete without Rick Rubin who bought Cash’s music to a whole new
audience in the 1990s and 2000s. One name often overlooked is that of legendary
Nashville producer Billy Sherrill and in this article we look back at his
career and his work with Johnny Cash.
Billy Norris Sherrill was born on 5 November 1936 in Phil Campbell a small town located in Franklin County, Alabama.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2023/05/johnny-cash-billy-sherrill-sessions.html
REMEMBERING JOHNNY CASH
First published 12 September 2023
The 12th September 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Johnny
Cash's death and I wanted to pay tribute to a man and artist whose music meant
so much to me and was a major influence in my own career as a writer,
journalist and consultant. For twenty-five years I ran the Johnny Cash
Fanzine and during that time was fortunate to meet and interview many
people associated with his career as well as become friends with many of those
who subscribed to the magazine. It is a time I will never forget.
I considered many different articles to remember him and could have written about his early career at Sun Records, his Columbia albums, the prison concerts, his work with Rick Rubin or any number of other aspects of his career. However, I have decided to look back at his final concert here in the United Kingdom and meeting him backstage.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2023/09/remembering-johnny-cash.html
JOHNNY CASH - THE LIFE IN LYRICS
First published 24 November 2023
Johnny Cash wrote over 600 songs covering everything from
love songs to murder ballads, prison songs to those about the working man,
American history and the plight of the Indians, humorous songs and gospel. In
this new book, Johnny Cash The Life In Lyrics, Cash historian
Mark Stielper looks in detail at 125 lyrics written by 'America's Foremost
Singing Storyteller'.
Within the 374 pages of this lavishly illustrated, hard-back, coffee table book Johnny Cash's fifty years of song-writing is bought together for the first time. However, it is more than just a book of lyrics as there are stories behind the songs which give the reader an insight into Cash, not only as an artist but also a man who spoke to a nation and the triumphs and challenges he faced in his own life.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2023/11/johnny-cash-life-in-lyrics.html
JOHNNY CASH - AMERICAN RECORDINGS
First published 26 April 2024
Thirty years ago, on 26 April 1994, Johnny Cash released his
album American Recordings, his first on his new label and with a
new producer, Rick Rubin. In this latest blog, an expanded and updated article
that originally appeared in Issue #40 of Johnny Cash-The Man in Black in
September 2004, we look back at how his career took on a new direction, the
release of the album and its commercial and critical success.
CBS’s decision to drop Johnny Cash after an unparalleled
twenty-eight year partnership angered many people. Dwight Yoakam, an up and
coming country star back in 1986 that Cash rated highly, didn’t hold back when
he said, “The man’s been there thirty fuckin’ years making them money.” And
talking about the Columbia executives offices he raged, “He built the
building.”
Even in 1986 Cash still had a loyal following playing sell-out concerts throughout the world and shifting over 40,000 copies of every album but this was not enough to justify a record companies investment and many other country stars would suffer the same fate in the years that followed.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2024/04/johnny-cash-american-recordings.html
JOHNNY CASH - SONGWRITER
First published 2 July 2024
Unfortunately this was not the case and his deal with them
soon turned sour. In 1993, with a career that had been going for almost forty
years, his prospects looked bleak. He hadn’t recorded for Mercury for close to
three years.
Under the terms of his 1986 contract with Mercury they were still owed one more album from Cash. However, neither party were in any particular rush–Cash in producing it or Mercury in releasing it. They both seemed keen to end the relationship and move on.
https://peter-lewry.blogspot.com/2024/07/johnny-cash-songwriter.html
INTERVIEW WITH 'COWBOY' JACK CLEMENT
First published 19 February 2025
'Cowboy' Jack Clement worked with Johnny Cash who recorded several of his songs. In this exclusive interview he talks about his days at Sun Records, working with Jerry Lee Lewis, songwriting, Johnny Cash, his recent CD and much more.
I have to ask how the name ‘Cowboy’ Jack Clement came about.
First published 22 July 2026
Cash’s regular touring band of the time accompanied him - Bob Wootton (guitar), W. S. Holland (drums), Marty Stuart (guitar & mandolin), Jerry Hensley (guitar), Earl Ball (piano), Jack Hale Jr and Bob Lewin (trumpet and French horn) although the bass player on this ocassion is one of Nashvilles finest, Henry Strzelecki. Also joining them was Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Lewis' guitar player, Kenneth Lovelace, who, as we shall see, joins Cash for several tracks.
During the show at the Sporthalle in Boblingen, Stuttgart the audience were treated to one of those rare moments that turns a great concert into an unforgettable experience.
