20th Century Fox has set a Walk the Line: Extended Cut DVD for release on 3/25. The film will feature 17 minutes of additional footage and the 2-disc set will also include audio commentary with co-writer and director James Mangold. The Johnny Cash Jukebox  feature offers 8 extended musical sequences from the film with new introductions, including Lewis Boogie, Get Rhythm, You’re My Baby, Jukebox Blues, Rock and Roll Ruby, That’s Alright Mama, Jackson  and Cocaine Blues and there is 2 more deleted scenes with optional commentary, the film’s theatrical trailer and 7 behind-the-scenes featurettes (Becoming Cash/Becoming Carter, Sun Records and the Johnny Cash Sound, The Cash Legacy, Folsom: Cash and the Comeback, Ring of Fire: The Passion of Johnny and June, Cash and His Faith and Celebrating the Man in Black: The Making of Walk the Line).

So I’m standing in line at the Starbucks near my work (yes, I do need a day job to supplement by blog) and as I’m  in front of the register making small talk with the lady (making fun of all the “soy-half-caf-dry-upside-down” doofus’) and I see a DVD/CD combo entitled “The Best of the Johnny Cash Show.” Now the cover is different from the one I’ve seen on the notoriously difficult to find version (at least difficult to find in Manhattan, where all the store are sold out. No country music fans in New York? HA!) so I’m a little suspicious, but I’ve had a hard time finding the other version and it was the last one, so I snatched it up with my Grande of the day.

The Starbucks version has only one DVD where the Sony Columbia Legacy has two. So, the Starbucks version omits some pretty tasty bits like Creedence Clearwater Revival playing “Bad Moon Rising” and Waylon Jennings doing “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line” and “The Singing Star’s Queen” with Johnny (Waylon’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” did make the SB cut.) But the Starbucks version does come with CD containing some performances not found on the original DVD.  Brenda Lee doing “Johnny One Time” and Johnny Cash,  The Carter Family and The Statler Brothers doing “Belshazzar” are some highlights.  Alas, the Starbucks version comes in a cheapo snap-case with no liner notes and I haven’t watched the DVD yet, so i don’t know if there are any interviews or features left out, but if you like me and finding it hard to find the original and want a CD of some of the selections, the Starbucks version is a nice make-due while waiting on the other to arrive in the mail.

Today is the 4th anniversary of Johnny Cash’s death at 71 years of age while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. I just had to put on Johnny Cash at San Quentin really loud and post this reminder. There will never be another Man In Black.

Johnny Cash - I Walk the Line (1959)

From Pitchfork.com - On September 18, CMV/Columbia/Legacy will release The Best of the Johnny Cash TV Show, a 2xDVD compiling 66 live performances from the 58 episodes of Johnny Cash’s 1969-1971 “The Johnny Cash Show”.

Kris Kristofferson hosts the DVD, which features performances from Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Ray Charles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Louis Armstrong, Loretta Lynn, Neil Diamond, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones, Derek and the Dominoes, Roy Orbison, the Carter Family (including June Carter Cash), and Johnny Cash himself, among many others.

The set also features new interviews with John Carter Cash, Tennessee Three bassist Marshall Grant, Hank Williams, Jr., musical arranger Bill Walker, and hairstylist Penny Lane.

There will also be a single-disc CD version of the compilation available on the same day as the DVD.

The Best of the Johnny Cash TV Show (DVD):

01 Johnny Cash: “Ring of Fire”
02 Bob Dylan: “I Threw It All Away”
03 Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan: “Girl From the North Country”
04 Kris Kristofferson: “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)”
05 Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash: “Blue Yodel #9″
06 Stevie Wonder: “Heaven Help Us All”
07 Creedence Clearwater Revival: “Bad Moon Rising”
08 Linda Ronstadt and Johnny Cash: “I Will Never Marry”
09 George Jones: Medley: “White Lightning” (with Johnny Cash) / “She Thinks I Still Care” / “The Love Bug” / “The Race Is On”
10 Johnny Cash: “Hey Porter”
11 Waylon Jennings: “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line”
12 Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash: “The Singing Star’s Queen”
13 Waylon Jennings: “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”
14 Tammy Wynette: “Stand by Your Man”
15 Marty Robbins: Medley: “Big Iron” / “Running Gun” / “El Paso”
16 Johnny Cash: “Ride This Train”
17 Johnny Cash: “As Long as the Grass Shall Grow”
18 Johnny Cash: “Man in Black”
19 James Taylor: “Sweet Baby James”
20 Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash: “Cripple Creek”
21 Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash: “Worried Man Blues”
22 Johnny Cash: “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
23 Johnny Cash: “Old Time Religion”
24 Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, the Statler Brothers, Carl Perkins, and the Tennessee Three: “Daddy Sang Bass”
25 Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters: “Wildwood Flower”
26 Neil Young: “The Needle and the Damage Done”
27 Johnny Cash: “Tennessee Flat Top Box”
28 Joni Mitchell and Johnny Cash: “Long Black Veil”
29 Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three with Carl Perkins: “Big River”
30 Johnny Cash: “I Walk the Line”
31 June Carter Cash: “A Good Man”
32 Derek and the Dominoes: “It’s Too Late”
33 Derek and the Dominoes With Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins: “Matchbox”
34 Charley Pride: “Able Bodied Man”
35 Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys: “Blue Moon of Kentucky”
36 Loretta Lynn: “I Know How”
37 Jerry Lee Lewis: “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”
38 Johnny Cash: “Ride This Train (America the Beautiful, This Land Is Your Land)”
39 The Everly Brothers With Ike Everly and Tommy Cash: “Silver Haired Daddy of Mine”
40 Ray Charles: “Ring of Fire”
41 Johnny Cash: “A Boy Named Sue”
42 Conway Twitty: “Hello Darlin’”
43 Mother Maybelle Carter: “Black Mountain Rag”
44 Tony Joe White and Johnny Cash: “Pork Salad Annie”
45 Glenn Campbell: “Wichita Lineman”
46 Neil Diamond: “Cracklin’ Rosie”
47 Ray Price: “For the Good Times”
48 Roy Orbison: “Crying”
49 Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash: “Oh, Pretty Woman”
50 Johnny Cash: “Wanted Man”
51 Chet Atkins and Johnny Cash: “Recuerdo De La Alhambra”
52 Chet Atkins: Medley: “Country Gentleman” / “Mister Sandman” / “Wildwood Flower” / “Freight Train”
53 June Carter Cash With Homer and Jethro: “Baby It’s Cold Outside”
54 Merle Haggard: “No Hard Time Blues”
55 Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash: “Sing Me Back Home”
56 Carl Perkins: “Blue Suede Shoes”
57 Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, the Statler Brothers, and Carl Perkins: “The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago”
58 Roy Clark: Medley: “In the Summertime” / “12th Street Rag”
59 The Statler Brothers: “Flowers on the Wall”
60 Johnny Cash: “Working Man Blues”
61 Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash: “Jackson”
62 Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash: “Turn Around”
63 Johnny Cash: “I Love You Because”
64 Hank Williams Jr.: Medley: “You Win Again” / “Cold Cold Heart” / “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love With You” / “Half As Much”
65 Johnny Cash: “A Wonderful Time up There”
66 Johnny Cash: “Folsom Prison Blues”

Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash “Girl From The North Country” - 1969

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.