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After John stopped using Bob Johnston as his producer in late
1970 (Johnston produced both of the prison albums, "The Holy Land,"
as well as (my choice for John's greatest album ever) "Hello, I'm
Johnny Cash"), composer/pianist Larry Butler was his main producer.
Butler produced the epic "Gospel Road," as well as "Children's
Album," "America," "Johnny Cash Family Christmas," (where he does his
own song "My Merry Christmas Song", and "Any Old Wind That Blows,"
plus the Carter Family's "Travelin' Minstrel Band" album. The Bragg
session was a "family" session, with the June and her daughter, which
may have been a foreshadowing. Despite the fact that John charted Top
5 with Butler-produced singles "Oney" (#2) and "Any Old Wind That
Blows" (#3), Butler was out before the first recording session in
1973. He changed labels and no longer handled John's projects.
After turning to Don Law Productions (the late Don Law was a
pivotal producer during John's tempestuous 1960s) for "Johnny Cash
and His Woman", Charlie Bragg was in as ongoing co-producer by late
1973. He worked on the final touches of the "Children's Album," plus
worked with the family, producing Carlene Carter's first solo turns
in early 1974, and was there for the original "Ragged Old Flag"
session at House of Cash in January 1974. While John acted as his own
producer on some projects, Bragg was back for the (family project)
"Junkie and Juicehead Minus Me" album. He was absent for the
"Hollywood" album, "John R. Cash" in late 1974, but by 1975 he was
now sole producer of "Texas '47" (the rest of the album which
included this single--"Look at Them Beans"--was produced by Don
Davis--Anita Carter's ex-husband--but Bragg was engineer). He
produced the famous Cash/Oak Ridge Boys sessions (never released) in
fall 1975, right after the European tour that year, which included the
first recording of "Far Side Banks of Jordan" plus John & June's
first version of that song two months later (also never released). He
and Don Davis co-produced John's last solo #1 in 1976, "One Piece at
a Time" as well as the album of the same name. He was also there for
"Last Gunfighter Ballad" in 1976. In January 1977 he bought House of
Cash Studios, renamed it Sound Spectrum, and produced (with J &
J's son-in-law Jack Routh) "Rambler." But this project wraps in March
of that year, and although John records the albums "I Would Like to
See You Again" and "Gone Girl" at Bragg's studio (within the House of
Cash office complex) in 1977 and 1978, Bragg does not participate at
all on the former, and only engineers the latter--both of which were
produced by: his predecessor as John's producer, Larry Butler!
After that, John moves to Jack Clement's studio and Columbia
Records' studio, both in Nashville, and John sticks almost
exclusively to those locations. Soon after, Sound Spectrum is gone,
and although Charlie Bragg did some engineering for John's
independent project "Believer Sings the Truth" in late 1979, he does
not work with John again. Thus his contributions to John's career
rested exclusively in the 1970s.
- Mark
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