Liner Notes

My manager, Lou Robin, said, "All VH1 wants is two guitars, two stools and you and Willie."

I approach the situation with much trepidation, for as I walk on the stage, there is a barn full of chrome and steel microphones, amplifiers and about a thousand miles of wire. The audience is three feet away, boxing us in, but with friendly faces. We pick, yet we know not what we pick. No planned program. Swapping songs from out of the back of our heads. Just like a guitar pull at my house.

He looks at me and sees that I am watching him. Now he's watching me. I think he knows I made a wrong chord.

He gets over it. We get into a song that feels good, Willie and me. I watch Willie's hands as he takes a guitar lead. He plows into a note and, at the same time, there is a slight grimace on his face, as if it might hurt just a little bit. As he pulls the note off, he grits his teeth.

I've seen hands like that in the cotton fields. Rough. Gnarly. Dexterous. Determined. Precise. Concise. Fascinating.

That said, how about greed. Lust. Anger. Sloth. Gluttony. Envy. Pride. The seven deadly sins. But none of them committed here tonight, except maybe envy on my part.

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Info

Personnel

• Johnny Cash - Vocals, Guitar, Producer
• Willie Nelson - Vocals, Guitar

 Additional personnel

• Rick Rubin - Producer, Mixing
• Sean Murphy - Producer
• Bill Flanagan - Executive Producer
• Michael Simon - Director
• Koji Egawa - Assistant Engineer, Mixing Assistant
• Randy Ezratty, Al Schmitt - Mixing
• Paul Cohen - House Mix
• Stephen Marcussen - Mastering
• David Coleman - Art Direction, Artwork, Design
• Wayne Wilkins - Art Direction, Artwork
• Marc Bryan-Brown - Photography
• Bruce Gillmer - Project Supervisor
• Wayne Isaak - Music Executive
• Sean Kelly - Coordination

Recorded: 1998

Charts

No Chart info for this album. 

Info

VH1's Storytellers series brings singer-songwriters to the screen with little more than their axe and their songs for company, as they tell the studio and home audience the stories behind their songs. Consequently, Cash and Nelson were subjects ripe for the plucking. The two living country legends occupy the stage simultaneously for this performance, often accompanying each other. Their voices may have gotten a bit more grizzled over the years, but Cash and Nelson show that they're still captivating performers as well as monumental songwriters.

Both classic and obscure tunes are showcased, running the gamut from Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" and Nelson's evergreen "Crazy" to the little-known Cash gem "Flesh and Blood." The repartee and good humor shared between the two in their between-song anecdotes adds an intimate, personal quality to what's already an album of some of the finest country songs extant.

Lyrics

Ghost Rider In The Sky

Worried Man

Family Bible

Don't Take Your Guns To Town

Funny How Time Slips Away

Flesh And Blood

Crazy

Unchained

Night Life

Drive On

Me And Paul

I Still Miss Someone

Always On My Mind

Folsom Prison Blues

On The Road Again

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