Johnny Cash’s first wife, the late Vivian Liberto Distin, will have her book I Walked the Line: My Life With Johnny posthumously released on Sept. 4 by Scribner Books. Before her death in 2005, Vivian told her story to TV producer Ann Sharpsteen, who shares an author credit on the book.

Vivian describes Cash’s early career, how June Carter entered their life and Vivian and Johnny’s divorce in 1966. Vivian is the mother of Cash’s four daughters. One of the daughters, Kathy Cash, says, “This book is the greatest part of my mother’s legacy as a wife, a grandmother, a matriarch, a mother and, most important, a woman in love.”

The book is based on thousands of letters exchanged by the couple before their marriage while he was overseas with the Air Force, co-writer Ann Sharpsteen said.

“The letters really reveal the real man, unclouded by drugs. Letters were his dreams, fears, a variety of subjects, fidelity, alcohol, faith. It’s like reading someone’s diary,” Sharpsteen said.
Kathy Cash, one of Johnny and Vivian’s daughters, said her mother visited her father in 2003 to tell him she wanted to do the book.

“He said, ‘Vivian, if anyone on this whole earth should write a book it should be you,”’ Kathy Cash said.

Distin was portrayed by Ginnifer Goodwin in the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line. According to Kathy, the portrayal was inaccurate and unfair to her mother. John Carter Cash, Kathleen’s half-brother and executive producer of the film, responded that he understood her concerns

Popmatters.com has an excellent review of Robert Elfstrom’s documentary Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, and His Music (1969). The film highlights Cash at his career pinnacle and looks back at his upbringing in rural

Arkansas.From the review: More than that, he was content to dwell in contradiction; he didn’t try to resolve all his warring selves. He was equally the outsider rockabilly and the establishment patriot, the social protestor and the Billy Graham crusader. He gave us a model of cultural ambivalence that we could all identify with. He didn’t solve America’s identity problems, he showed us how to live with them. 

A first-ever release of a performance by the Man in Black at the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, New Jersey on July 27, 1990 will be released as “Johnny Cash - The Great Lost Performance” (Island/UMe), released July 24, 2007, debuts nearly 17 years to the day of the original concert.

The nearly hour-long CD features the classics - “I Walk The Line,” “Hey Porter” and “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Ring Of Fire,” but will also feature duets with wife June Carter Cash on “Jackson” and “The Wreck Of Old ‘97.” The CD will also feature Cash’s first performance of his original “What Is Man?,” and his only recorded version of country gospel’s “Wonderful Time Up There” and “A Beautiful Life,” and his only concert version of “Life’s Railway To Heaven,” whose studio version by Cash
was released only posthumously.

Props to the 9513 for the heads up!

Just got back from seeing the family in Dallas for the 4th. While tooling around in Mom’s Merc I checked out the local flavor and tuned into Lone Star 92.5, the Clear Channel radio station I previously had posted on. Sure I could stream them online and enjoy the tunes here in Manhattan but it’s not the same as cruising around the rain soaked streets of my youth.

I one sitting I heard The Allman Brothers, Dylan, Reckless Kelly, Johnny Cash, The Drive By Truckers and Todd Snyder. This, in my mind, is heaven.

On the plane home we too AirTran Airlines. They are always good and, from my experience, mostly on time. Most importantly, the servers on board are always nice to my daughter and they get major points for that.

The airline offered XM Radio on board the plane and while my daughter was absorbed in Miyazaki’s superb animation feature Spirited Away, I checked out what XM had to offer. I stayed a while at “Willie’s Place” and was pleased to hear the old school outlaws represented – Merle, Ray, Leftie – legends you don’t hear enough of on commercial radio. I then headed over to X (cross) Country and it sweetened the deal with John Prine, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle. I was sold. When I get out of the city and buy and truck the very next day I’m getting XM Radio. But when I drive it through Dallas, it’ll take a back seat the Lone Star 92.5.

Recently I posted that music industry gadfly Bob Lefsetz has recently discovered mainstream country radio on satellite radio. And he’s been posting them a big sloppy one ever since (Ooooo little Big Town , how like a poor man’s Fleetwood Mac you are!),but he’s dead on in his latest post about Bon Jovi’s recent excursion to the wrong side of the cultural tracks, put on some $1000. boots and tried their hand at country music. Bad idea!

Bon Jovi has had a much longer shelf-life than most of their big-haired brethren (hear that Poison?!) and it helps that Jon Bon Jovi has aged well enough that middle age women all over the nation want to still jump his bones. But good ass genes does not good music make.

Bon Jovi has been brilliant at keeping himself on the public eye. How many times have they played the Today show in the last few years? I bet it rivals Steve Martin’s record for hosting SNL (14). But just like with genes, exposure does not a great band make.

So now Bon Jovi goes where other metal bands have gone before. ”, Warrant’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Poison’s “Something to Believe In” both were pop-metal forays into Southern-fried sounds and it succeeded about well as might think. If you suck at metal why wouldn’t you suck at country?

The mistake that these bands make is looking at the money and demographics of mainstream country and calculating that it’s a smart business decision. Business, not passion. When Michael Ness of Social Distortion covers Ring Of Fire it’s not because he thinks “There sure are a lot of Cash fans that will buy this.” He does it because he respects what Johnny did and HAS to pay tribute.

Will I listen to Bob Jovi new release “Lost Highway”? Probably not, I’ve heard it before. Pop-country is like mosquitoes in Nashville. Everywhere and sucking.

Thanks to the 9513 for putting this on my radar. Inspired by the Johnny Cash song of the same name, Austin’s one-of-a-kind Mean Eyed Cat bar is facing possible closure.

The property that the bar occupies is zoned as a retail space and thus is required to earn 51 percent of its revenue from food sales - The space has no kitchen so that’spretty much out of the question.

Owner Chris Marsh has taken the issue to the city council to ask that the property be rezoned. The council is set to vote on June 21.

Go to the Mean Eyed Cat and spend your hard-earned cash.

Go here to support the rezoning.

Two months before he passed. Sad but beautiful. Enjoy.

Has Clear Channel lost it’s little rigid, corporate mind?

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram’s Cary Darling (great name!) has an interesting article on a local radio station with went from the old tried-and-true classic radio format to an alt-country mix, an example playlist contains the Drive-By Truckers, Johnny Cash and Robert Earl Keen, coupled with a low-key PBS style of corporate sponsorship instead of the hyper-audio-effects whiplash-inducing commercials that make most terrestrial radio hard to take seriously. Even thier web-site shows images of Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Tom Petty. Nice!

XM and Sirius satellite radio and it’s more niche formatting (think radio in the 70s) has displayed enough relative success at pealing off listeners that Clear Channel is throwing the dice and taking some calculated chances. D.js. are seen as more than playlist parrots and more like the musical authorities with their own crates of vinyl they schlep to the station and with tales about the music and the artists.

I still think Clear Channel is an example of everything wrong with a corporate media giant, but I will take my hat off to them for treating listeners and the music with respect and not simply a spreadsheet list of product and consumer.

Lone Star 92.5’s Commercial Featuring Wille Nelson

Country Standard Time reports - Marty Stuart will host his annual Late Night Jam to benefit MusiCares during CMA Music Fest on June 6 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives (Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson, Brian Glenn) will perform and host the unstructured marathon of live music with guest performances this year by singer/songwriter Neko Case, Muzik Mafia founder John Rich (Big & Rich), Eric Church and Ashley Monroe,Charley Pride, Pam Tillis and Porter Wagoner.

“I try never to lose sight of the fact that Nashville is considered Music City,” said Stuart. “When it is time to book the Late Night Jam, it is always my goal to make every form of music welcome. That’s why the Ryman is such a great setting for this concert. It is the Mother Church. Every year, I always feel like its the best we’ve ever had, and this year proves to be no different.”

Marty Stuart’s 6th Annual Late Night Jam has raised more than $70,000 to date for MusiCares, the philanthropic arm of The Recording Academy.

That same week, Stuart will release “Compadres: An Anthology of Duets,” which includes a lifetime of musical collaborations with friends such as Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Steve Earle, George Jones, BB King, Mavis Staples and others. He will also debut an historic museum exhibit titled “Sparkle & Twang: Marty Stuart’s American Musical Odysse” at the Tennessee State Museum that week featuring treasures from the late Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Elvis and more.

Is country music dead? If the cover of the new Dale Watson release “From the Cradle to the Grave” contains any insight the answer is a resounding yes. There Dale stands like a hybrid Pauly Walnuts from the Sopranos and the Unknown Hinson looming sepia soaked in a grave yard. Just behind him on a a headstone is inscribed the verdict - “Country Music R.I.P.” Dale has every reason for writing an obituary, from the Grand ‘ol Oprey’s shafting of older members, big box retailers strangling of music distribution, radio’s rigid top seller play list and the biggest star in country coming from a dismal reality show you’d think death might be the best thing to happen to the genre.

Ten songs in three days. That’s how long it took Watson to write and lay down the tracks in a Hendersonville, TN. cabin formerly owned by Johnny Cash (currently owned by Johnny Knoxville.) Dale has said in interviews says at first he was adamant about not writing or recording anything remotely reminiscent of Johnny Cash but the specter of Cash, technique as well as themes, runs throughout the entire album.

But instead of merely a derivation “From the Cradle to the Grave” sounds like pure Dale Watson. One of the great things
about country music is that the great artists aren’t afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves. Dale displays not
only Cash, but Haggard and Waylon as well.

The Cash DNA boom-chuka-boom runs deeply to excellent affect in the opening “Justice For All,” a song about the between the law and a personal desire for vengeance. The stripped down Tennessee Three sound of Hollywood Hillbilly, a song about Johnny Knoxville, is as no frills as you’re about to find.

The Bananza-like big range sound of “Time Without You” gallops along at a fine pace. “Yellow Mama,” a dark yarn about a life gone wrong and the electric chair waiting at the end. The apocalyptic vibe reflects onward in “Tomorrow Never Comes” with it’s zen like observations of time.

Cash gets a formal call out at the end of “Runaway Train” with lyrics quoted directly from some of the Man In Black’s best known songs. “I hear that train a comin’ / hey Porter, oh Porter / yea I don’t care if I do die do die do die.” closes out the song and this all too short album.

Thanks Dale’s enduring and brave 25-year career and to this album, to paraphrase the late, Great Mark Twain, the rumors of country music’s death has been greatly exaggerated.