Release coincides with October 18th publication of John Carter Cash memoir, House Of Cash: The Life, Legacy and Archives of The Man In Black
NEW YORK, Aug. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Legacy Recordings continues to celebrate the life and timesand music of Johnny Cash, who would have turned 80 years old next February 26, 2012. In that spirit, Legacy’s CASH 80 campaign is launched with the third entry in the successful Cash Bootleg series, focusing on live performances in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.
BOOTLEG VOL. 3 – LIVE AROUND THE WORLD is a treasure trove of rare tracks spanning nearly a quarter-century of Johnny Cash performances. The shows date from 1956 (the Big “D” Jamboree in Dallas, Texas) to 1979 (the Exit Inn in Nashville). Along the way, this deluxe double-CD package of 50 musical performances (39 of them previously unreleased) makes some very exciting stops:
New River Ranch, a country hoe-down in rural Rising Sun, Maryland (1962);
Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island (July 1964);
Annex 14 NCO Club, Long Binh, Vietnam (USO tour, January 1969);
The White House, at President Nixon’s invitation (April 1970);
Osteraker Prison in Sweden (October 1972);
CBS Records Convention in Nashville (1973);
The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia (1976); and
Wheeling Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia (October 1976).
House Of Cash also dovetails with the concept behind the Cash Bootleg series. After the deaths of his parents June Carter Cash in May 2003, and Johnny Cash in September 2003, the task of going through their huge storage vault packed to the brim with memories fell to John Carter as curator and his wife Laura. They unearthed a large number of unpublished photographs, poetry and songs, master tapes dating back to the mid-50s, sketches, film reels, audio tapes, “strange hats, guitar cases, harmonicas,” and much more.
“The songs, poetry, and other writings; the images; and artifacts offered a deeper glimpse of who my father really was. It became my mission to share what I felt he would have liked people to know about him. This is the essence of this book. – John Carter Cash”
In turn, the essence of the Cash Bootleg series has been developed by multi-Grammy Award®-nominated producer Gregg Geller, and multi-Grammy® and W.C. Handy Award-winning musician/producer Steve Berkowitz. The Hendersonville archive bore first fruit on Columbia/Legacy in May 2006, with the release of Personal File aka Bootleg Vol. 1, a fascinating double-CD collection of 49 privately recorded, intimate solo performances by Johnny Cash dating from 1973 to 1982.
Four years later in May 2010, From Memphis To Hollywood: Bootleg Vol. 2 continued the series. This time the focus was on the dawning of Cash’s recording career at Sun Records in Memphis from late 1954 to late ’57 (on CD One), into his first decade at Columbia Records in Nashville, from 1958 to 1969 (on CD Two), when he began to find work in the world of film and television.
BOOTLEG VOL. 3 picks up the thread over the course of the 10 live performance settings. The Big “D” Jamboree in Dallas preserves the pure 1956 Sun Records sound of Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, with Luther Perkins on electric guitar and Marshall Grant (who passed away on August 7, 2011) on bass. By the time of the New River Ranch show in 1962, the renamed Tennessee Three was a well-tuned combo, with W.S. “Fluke” Holland, who joined in 1960 on drums.
Cash is next heard at his ground-breaking appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, where he is introduced by Pete Seeger. This was the second year that Bob Dylan also played the festival as a solo acoustic folksinger. In the early ’60s, Cash virtually single-handedly established the bridge from commercial country music to contemporary folk music, a bridge heavily traveled – in both directions – by many artists as time went on, especially the decade younger Dylan. Cash’s eight-song 1964 set at Newport (without drums!) includes not only Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” but also Peter LaFarge’s “Ballad Of Ira Hayes,” the Carter Family’s “Keep On The Sunny Side,” and the venerable “Rock Island Line.”
Five years later in 1969, at the height of hostilities in Southeast Asia, Cash brought his group, along with June Carter Cash and Carl Perkins to an NCO Club in Long Binh, Vietnam, which had turned into a sprawling U.S. outpost city by then. With one recording at Folsom Prison under his belt, and another at San Quentin just a few weeks ahead, the bravery of Cash’s troupe was unquestioned. The soldiers were treated to a blistering hot set, including two duets with June, and the closing version of “Daddy Sang Bass,” which was Cash’s current single at the time.
Much has been written and surmised about Johnny Cash’s performance at the White House in 1970, at the personal invitation of President Richard Nixon, who introduced the show. This is the longest set on BOOTLEG VOL. 3 (12 songs), as the entire traveling entourage is showcased: June, her sister Anita and the Carter Family, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers.
Three tracks are selected from the oft-overlooked live prison recording from Sweden, Pa Osteraker, recorded in 1972, and released as a 12-song set in Scandinavia in 1973. Unlike the Folsom and San Quentin LPs, Pa Osteraker did not revisit familiar repertoire; instead, it offered an adventurous program of lesser-known tunes, one of the most recognizable being Gene Autry’s durable old “That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine.” Pa Osteraker was reissued by Sony in Europe in 2007, with the full concert sequence intact for the first time, 24 songs’ worth. Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” was one of the tracks that was restored for the 2007 CD.
The balance of the 1970s tracks on BOOTLEG VOL. 3 present Cash in varying settings: the CBS Records Convention in Nashville (1973); the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia (1976, with Johnny solo accompanied by piano); the Wheeling Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia (October 1976, with the Tennessee Three joined by a pianist); and the Exit Inn in Nashville (1979, where the group is joined by “Cowboy” Jack Clement on guitar and Earl Poole Ball on piano).
In a troubled world where partisanship is the rule of the day, and consequences be damned, the memory of Johnny Cash is a reminder that the good a man does can surely outlive him. All people, all walks of life were part of Cash’s America and Cash’s world, not just those who agreed with him or opposed him. There was a place for everyone at Johnny Cash’s table.
“As his respectability grew,” music scholar Dave Marsh writes in the liner notes for the package, “Johnny Cash decided to represent the people he came from. Their stories and struggles were his – he was, still, the man who began picking cotton for a living at age five. At the same time, he didn’t spend a lot of time telling those people what they wanted to hear, either. If, at the White House, he spoke truth to power (albeit in the most gentlemanly fashion), night after night, he did something more difficult, and more important: He spoke truth to power. Most often it was not a political truth; it was an emotional truth. But emotional truth, for most of us, is even harder to come by.”
From country jamborees and juke joints, to folk festivals, prison shows, USO tours in war zones, and even a White House invitational, there was no audience Cash could not win over through his music.
BOOTLEG VOL. 3 – LIVE AROUND THE WORLD by JOHNNY CASH
(Columbia/Legacy 88697 93033 2)
Disc One:
Big “D” Jamboree, Dallas, Texas, 1956:
1. So Doggone Lonesome • 2. I Walk The Line • 3. Get Rhythm
New River Ranch, Rising Sun, Maryland, 1962:
4. Country Boy • 5. I Still Miss Someone • 6. Cotton Fields • 7. I Walk The Line • 8. Luther’s Boogie • 9. Impersonations • 10. Rock Island Line • 11. The Rebel – Johnny Yuma
Newport Folk Festival, Newport, Rhode Island, July 26, 1964:
12. Introduction – Pete Seeger • 13. Big River • 14. Folsom Prison Blues • 15. I Still Miss Someone • 16. Rock Island Line • 17. Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright • 18. I Walk The Line • 19. Ballad Of Ira Hayes • 20. Keep On The Sunny Side
Annex 14 NCO Club, Long Binh, Vietnam, January 1969:
21. Big River • 22. Wreck Of The Old ’97 • 23. Tennessee Flat Top Box • 24. Remember The Alamo • 25. Cocaine Blues • 26. Jackson – duet with June Carter Cash • 27. Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man – duet with June Carter Cash • 28. Ring Of Fire • 29. Daddy Sang Bass.
Disc Two:
The White House, Washington, D.C., April 17, 1970:
1. Introduction – President Richard M. Nixon • 2. A Boy Named Sue • 3. Five Feet High And Rising • 4. Pickin’ Time • 5. Wreck Of The Old ’97 • 6. Lumberjack • 7. Jesus Was A Carpenter • 8. What Is Truth • 9. (There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me) • 10. He Turned The Water Into Wine • 11. Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord) • 12. Daddy Sang Bass • 13. The Old Account
Osteraker Prison, Sweden, October 3, 1972:
14. Sunday Morning Comin’ Down • 15. The Prisoner’s Song • 16. That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine
CBS Records Convention, Nashville, Tennessee, 1973:
17. City Of New Orleans
The Carter Fold, Hiltons, Virginia, 1976:
18. Ragged Old Flag • 19. One Piece At A Time
Wheeling Jamboree, Wheeling, West Virginia, October 2, 1976:
20. Hey Porter • 21. There You Go • 22. Give My Love To Rose
Exit Inn, Nashville, Tennessee, December 10, 1979:
23. (Ghost) Riders In The Sky • 24. I’m Just An Old Chunk Of Coal.
Note: All tracks are previously unreleased., except:
Disc One – tracks 12-20;
Disc Two – tracks 8, and 14-16.
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SOURCE Legacy Recordings
