I’ve got a thing about Cash

Johnny Cash, that is. Cash-money I am not as well acquainted with.

I know I’ve written about Cash before. If I tagged these damned posts properly, things would be a lot easier to find, but I’ve never been about easy…

Anyhow, my work situation is kind of shit right now, (cut from full time to part time employment a couple weeks ago), and I’ve just survived a truly miserable two-and-a-half months that started with a devilishly inconvenient nerve injury at the beginning of November which lasted through the holidays, encompassed my usual holiday PMS, then wrapped up with an ugly case of cabin fever as a result of me being off my regular schedule for so long. And in pain. And underemployed.

So much shame, so little time for self-pity...

In spite of which, I find myself today with both time on my hands—which I should be expending pursuing full-time employment, but that would be easy—and a spring in my step.

So I wanted to share.

If you click the link above, you can read all about how I came into possession of the full run of Cash’s ’69-’71 ABC-TV variety show and started posting clips to YouTube. Following are a few clips from the online collection that are among my favorites.

On his show, for every Pet Clark that was booked, Cash insisted on a Bob Dylan. For every Charlie Callas or George Gobel that was forced on him by witless network suits, he featured a Joni Mitchell or a Neil Young. Eventually, of course, the Suits prevailed, and some of the final episodes were fairly sad, desperate affairs.

But when his show was good, it was great.

The Vietnam War—and the protests against same—were in full swing during the time Cash’s show ran. Protesting our country’s wars-of-choice was about as popular with Cash’s conservative country/western base then as it is today. Savvier mainstream celebrities wouldn’t—and didn’t—touch the subject with a ten-foot-pole, but Johnny Cash was not a savvy celebrity. He performed the following song twice during his program’s brief run.



Every episode featured a thinly-disguised history lesson in the middle of the show, a segment called “Ride This Train,” where Cash worked both his love of trains and the common man into a compelling narrative on a weekly basis. I picked the one below because it contains one of my favorite Johnny Cash deep-cuts, “The Whirl and The Suck.”



This next one reveals a seldom-seen side of Cash, where he invites his mother to accompany him on piano on a gospel number they sang and played together when he was a boy.



The next clip, featuring Shel Silverstein’s “Boy Named Sue” as well as Cash’s own composition, “Flesh and Blood,” is from one of his last shows, a themed episode that was taped before an audience of college-aged kids. The first part was released on an official “Best-Of” collection a couple years ago, but the second song was omitted. Which is a crying shame, because watching him perform these songs back-to-back, without a break, provides an invaluable insight into the range of the man as a musician, a performer and a human being.



Finally, because I only meant for this to take a couple minutes and it’s already eaten up most of my morning, I’m throwing in one of my favorite guest shots, one that no doubt gave the Suits apoplexy: Peace-hugging pinko and Communist subversive Pete Seeger. Any further introduction would be superfluous.



Man, that was awesome. I could watch that clip forever. Next time I get a hankerin’, I’ll post a few clips of some of the show’s best guest appearances.

I’ll close with this. Everybody who’s seen “I Walk The Line” thinks they know all about Cash’s drug problems. No offense to the actor who played him in the film, but he barely scratched the surface. This final clip is from an appearance Cash—and future spouse, June Carter—made on Seeger’s (PBS? cable-access?) TV show in the full flower of Cash’s addiction. It is not pretty, but it is powerful and necessary viewing. It drives home the point that when Johnny Cash sang about sin and redemption, which he did for his entire career, he was testifying, not speculating.