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You can check out a few videos from the Johnny Cash Christmas Special, with highlights like Andy Kauffman riffing on Elvis, and the lethal combination of Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison singing “This Train is Bound For Glory,” all on Pitchfork TV.

But this one is fitting for the time.

This is from episode 38, Oct., 28, 1970, of The Johnny Cash Show.  I love Satchmo’s joke about “giving it to ‘em in black and white” before playing.

Armstrong died about nine months later and this is thought to be one of his final performances, appearances, etc.  To have it be with Johnny Cash … those voices!

Mp3: Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong - “Blue Yodel No. 9″

[via constant siege]

A&E has a Johnny Cash biography debuting tomorrow night (Oct. 23) at 9 p.m.  I’m sure most people are going to say “yeah, yeah, but we saw the movie with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon,” to which you would be promptly pimped slapped by someone (not me I’m non-violent).

You can see the trailer, but just know that the quote from Snoop Dog can not be topped: “I watch that footage of him performing live in prison and seeing how the inmates respected him and didn’t want to kill him, or wanna to stab him - that shows his music is made for all walks of life.  Him doing a show for them shows love and compassion.”

Relatedly: Punknews.org is streaming a new Johnny Cash tribute album and it’s pretty good if you like some of these bands.  All Aboard: A Tribute to Johnny Cash includes contributions by MxPx, The Dresden Dolls, The Gaslight Anthem, members of Lucero and The Hold Steady, The Loved Ones, The Bouncing Souls and others. Songs include Folsom Prison Blues, Cry Cry Cry, Delia’s Gone and Man in Black.

Here’s a full tracklisting. Enjoy!  Heather has a nice write up and some Mp3’s for ya.

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Sorry I missed this yesterday. ?Friday was the fifth anniversary of Johnny Cash’s death. ?To say he was just a country music legend seems sorta beneath him doesn’t it? ?He was much more than that. An inspirational figure for cutting your own swath, gumption, redemption.? I’m not sure I can live without either of his prison live records At San Quentin or At Folsom Prison. ?

When Cash passed away, most music fans familiar with his story found it somehow appropriate or a nice bookend or not all that surprising, given that his amour, June Carter Cash, passed a few months previous. ?The thought of living without her a burden too great for even a survivor like Johnny Cash to bear. ?

To commorate the singer, Johnnycashradio.com is streaming a broadcast special featuring remembrances from his daughters Roseanne and Joanne Cash Yates. ?One of the highlights includes the first ever song Cash recorded. ?It’ll only be available for a limited time, but you can download it from?ITunes. ?

“No other entertainer left such an indelible imprint on our society as Cash did,” says Bill Miller, founder of the official Johnny Cash website. “His music and legacy transcend generations and his appeal continues to grow even in death.”

Amen to that. ?These two songs slay me every time I listen to them. Doesn’t matter when I hear them. In fact I’m crying right now just trying to upload them. Damn you Johnny Cash! Damn you straight to heaven.

Johnny Cash - “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
Johnny Cash - “Sunday Morning Coming Down”

It’s February 1969. Bob Dylan, two years removed from the release of the somber and contemplative John Wesley Harding, returns to Nashville to begin work on what will become his ninth studio album, the full-on country record Nashville Skyline.

Though it was met with great commercial success, it peaked at #3 on the charts, many critics didn’t know what to make of it, despite knowing Dylan’s penchant for shifting gears, changing sounds and his chameleonic nature.

The album, under the direction of producer Bob Johnston was recorded in about nine days, from Feb. 12-21. Midway through the sessions at Columbia’s Studio A, friend (since the 1964 Newport Folk Festival) and fellow label mate Johnny Cash stopped by to say hello.

Cash was still basking in the success of the release of his live record At Folsom Prison, was still four months away from his other legendary live performance At San Quentin and that year he would begin playing television host for The Johnny Cash Show on ABC. Needless to say, these two musicians were not only at the height of their popularity (well some thirty years later it’s debatable as both are as popular now as they were back then) and creative peak.

During a two day stretch of playing and recording together, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash recording a bevy of songs together, all of them deemed unworthy to be released or featured on Dylan’s new record. Only one of them, a reworking of “Girl From the North Country” was added to Nashville Skyline.

What’s interesting about this session is how much fun Dylan and Cash had playing music together. Many of the songs are sloppy and rightfully don’t belong on any official release. Lines are screwed up, notes are misplayed, both artists sing over each other. It feels like one of those moments, a rare glimpse into two Supernovas playing for no reason but the hell of it.

There’s an excellent mix of Cash tunes, Dylan originals, more traditional Americana arrangements, even an Elvis Presley cover song. After a few listens, one can easily understand why neither wanted this released, but these sessions deserved to be heard for not just music fans or fans of either gentleman, but as a slice of American history, a sharp moment in time, never to be duplicated. For these sessions represent the improbable intersection of what could have been had Cash and Dylan said screw it and tossed aside any notions of The Traveling Wilburys or The Highwaymen.

Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash - The Nashville Sessions

1. One Two Many Mornings (recorded Feb. 17)
2. Mountain Dew (recorded Feb. 18)
3. I Still Miss Someone (recorded Feb. 17)
4. Careless Love ( traditional / recorded Feb. 18)
5. Matchbox (recorded Feb. 18)
6. That’s Alright, Mama (Elvis Presley cover / recorded Feb. 18)
7. Big River (recorded Feb. 18)
8. Girl From the North Country (recorded Feb. 18)
9. I Walk the Line (recorded Feb. 18)
10. You Are My Sunshine (recorded Feb. 18)
11. Guess Things Happen That Way (recorded Feb. 18)
12. Just a Closer Walk With Thee (traditional hymn / recorded Feb. 18)
13. Blue Yodel #1 (Jimmie Rodger’s cover / recorded Feb. 18)
14. Blue Yodel #5 (Jimmie Rodger’s cover / recorded Feb. 18)
15. I Threw it All Away (LIVE FROM THE JOHNNY CASH SHOW)
16. Living the Blues (recorded Feb. 18)
17. Girl From the North Country (LIVE)
18. Nashville Skyline Rag (recorded Feb. 18)
19. I Threw it All Away (alternate album version)
20. Peggy Day (alternate album version)
21. Country Pie (alternate album version)
22. Tonight, I’ll Be Staying Here With You (alternate album version)

Now this is not the complete session, as versions of “Ring of Fire” “Mystery Train,” “Don’t Think Twice it’s Alight,” “How High the Water” and “Wanted Man” were also attempted. Those songs, I was unable to track down.

If anyone has versions of them, please pass them along from one fan to another. I’ve been told there are bootlegged versions, commercial or otherwise, of these sessions. Which means, those have to be out there, right?

DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE SESSION HERE

Who knew Johnny Cash not only could play a mean ass tune but also had a dang funny sense of humor? Certainly not us, but after seeing this video of a young Johnny Cash doing an Elvis impersonation we figured it was too hilarious not to share. And really, after watching this video, The Man in Black might just make the best Elvis impersonator going. He’s got it down cold and absolutely kills the King in under three minutes.? Long live The Man in Black!

It’s also a good excuse to offer up some Johnny Cash and Elvis tunes.

Mp3: Elvis Presley - “Blue Moon of Kentucky”
Mp3: Elvis Presley - “Mystery Train”
Mp3: Johnny Cash - “Cocaine Blues”
Mp3: Johnny Cash with June Carter- “Jackson”
Mp3: Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan - “I Walk the Line”

The Tennessee home of Johnny Cash burned down yesterday. The Hendersonville cabin was where Cash wrote most of his enduring country songs, was featured in the movie Walk the Line and was even where the video for “Hurt” was shot.

According to Reuters (via the Hendersonville Star News):

Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived together in the three-story, wooden lakeside house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, about 20 miles north of Nashville, from 1968 until they died within months of each other in 2003.

The Hendersonville Star News quoted a fire official as saying the blaze probably started when fumes from a wood preservative used in the renovations were ignited by a spark.

The real tragedy of this story is that Barry Gibb, of Bee Gees fame, bought the house in 2006 and planned to use it as a summer vacation home. Renovations of the home were in the final stages.

According to fire officials the only thing left from the flames were a gold chain, a toothpick, a pair of white platform shoes, and a powder blue polyester suit.