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News Updates 2005

 

Presley, Cash Gain Additional Multi-Platinum Certifications
December 31.2005 3:02 PM EST


Gone but obviously not forgotten, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash end 2005 with additional multi-platinum certifications from the RIAA. ELV1S: 30 #1 Hits was certified quadruple platinum for shipments of 4 million copies. Presley's It's Christmas Time and Cash's 16 Biggest Hits went double platinum for shipments of 2 million copies each. Kenny Chesney's The Road and the Radio also went double platinum in December. The Legend of Johnny Cash attained platinum status for shipments of 1 million copies. As previously reported, other RIAA platinum certifications for December include Carrie Underwood's debut album, Some Hearts, and the latest releases by Trace Adkins, Dierks Bentley, Sheryl Crow, Martina McBride and Reba McEntire. Going gold for shipments of 500,000 copies are Gary Allan's Tough All Over and Miranda Lambert's debut album, Kerosene. 

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Musician with area roots takes his talent to Broadway
Raytown South grad to work on ‘Ring of Fire’
By EMILY IORG
The Kansas City Star

Armed with musical talent, Raytown South High School graduate Jeff Lisenby has gone from one entertainment mecca to another.

He has lived and worked in Nashville, Tenn., for several years, and now he is moving to New York, temporarily, to direct the music in the upcoming Broadway show “Ring of Fire,” featuring the songs of Johnny Cash.

Lisenby, 50, began playing keyboard and accordion when he was 5. He was in the Musicians’ Union at 14.

“Music has always been one of the high priorities in my life,” Lisenby said in a telephone interview recently.

In the musical, he plays keyboard and accordion, in addition to arranging much of the music.

Lisenby said stage experience in Kansas City equipped him for this project.

“One of the things that prepared me most for Broadway was working at Starlight Theatre,” he said. “I got to see what the shows were like and how it works.”

“Ring of Fire” has its preview Feb. 8 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in Manhattan. Opening night is March 12.

The production had its premiere in Buffalo, N.Y., in September.

“We had standing ovations every night,” Lisenby said. “After the first week of shows, they stopped advertising because they had full houses.”

Asked about “Walk the Line,” a recent movie about Cash’s life, Lisenby said he thought most of the “Ring of Fire” cast liked the movie. But he added that “the movie is limited. … It doesn’t show a lot of the goodness and big heart Johnny had. Hopefully in our show you see a lot more of his faith than you did in the movie.”

John Carter Cash, son of Johnny Cash, attended “Ring of Fire” in Buffalo. Lisenby said Cash told the cast he liked the stage show more than the movie.

The cast has six performers and eight musicians. And the musicians are anything but behind the scenes.

“We’re all on stage,” Lisenby said. “We have to learn choreography and the whole bit, which is interesting for musicians.”

“Ring of Fire” has no clear plot and is more about the era in which Cash lived than about his life.

“There is no Johnny Cash character in the show,” Lisenby said.

The show includes 38 Cash songs, which Lisenby said are in order so the audience sees the progression of Cash’s life.

“It’s a series of music videos,” he said. “They take each song and act it out.”

Lisenby’s mother, who lives in Kansas City, is proud of her son’s accomplishments.

“He’s always worked hard and is kind of a musician’s musician,” said Doris Lisenby.

Of the six principal actors, two are supposed to be in their 20s, two in their 40s, and two in their 60s. Lisenby said each pair can represent Johnny and wife June Carter Cash at different phases in their lives, or simply a nonspecific family.

“There are scenes when we all just sit around the dinner table and are a big family,” Lisenby said. “It’s a family-oriented show.”

Lisenby has lived in Nashville for several years. He signed a six-month contract for “Ring of Fire” and will rent an apartment in New York for however long the show runs. He will keep his house in Nashville, where he lives with wife Pam and college-age son Jonathan. His wife will visit New York periodically.

“Ring of Fire” producers and directors came to Nashville to hold auditions. Lisenby was chosen as musical director during these auditions. Five of the eight orchestra members selected are from Nashville.

Lisenby said he enjoys working with the “Ring of Fire” cast.

“I think we all just have a respect for Johnny Cash and his music, (as well as) the incredible amount of good he did for others,” he said. “Most of us grew up listening to that music and know it pretty well.”

In Nashville, Lisenby has logged several recording sessions for folk, pop and rock albums, done singer/songwriter sessions, and produced jingles and background music for industrial films. Lisenby also learned the Nashville number system, a shorthand method of writing chords developed by Nashville studio musicians. Chords in a key are given a number rather than written out.

Lisenby has shared his talents with budding musicians. He taught music classes at Belmont University in Nashville from 1993 to May 2005. He also taught an “original cast” extracurricular class at Vanderbilt University from 1992 to 2002, in which students formed a Broadway-show-type troupe and put on a performance.

In Kansas City, Lisenby was conductor and keyboardist at Kansas City Chiefs games in the early 1970s. He worked with Chiefs bandleader Tony DiPardo.

Right out of high school, in the summer of 1973, Lisenby landed a job at the newly opened Worlds of Fun. He dressed as a Frenchman and strolled through the park playing the accordion.

From 1973 to 1981, Lisenby attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music, where he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There, Lisenby also met Pam, a music major.

During his undergraduate career, he studied under Joan Cochran Sommers, who established the accordion degree program at the conservatory in 1961. Sommers is currently a retired professor emeritus and leads the UMKC Accordion Orchestra.

“He was a good student, always a gentleman and just really top-notch,” said Sommers.

Even before college, Lisenby studied with Sommers. Under her direction, Lisenby received national accordion champion honors in 1974 and 1977, and took home bronze medals in the international classical championships in Europe.

“We played classical music in those competitions, which people don’t expect out of an accordion,” Lisenby said.

In 1975, Lisenby also traveled with one of Sommers’ accordion groups on a 10-week USO tour to Germany.

Accordionist Betty Jo Simon performed with Lisenby in the accordion orchestra. She has known him since he was 9 or 10, and said even then he showed “extraordinary talent.” Simon described Lisenby as likable and very easygoing.

Simon added that Lisenby was well respected by Kansas City musicians, and performed with local groups, including the New Red Onion Jazz Babies.

Lisenby said he doesn’t have a favorite genre of music and is used to performing a range of styles.

“There isn’t any style that he can’t play,” Simon said. “He’s very versatile. I even took a few lessons with him on jazz improvisation.”

As for plans after the show, Lisenby hopes to make contacts in New York and do recording sessions there, as well as “get in with the jazz world.”

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Country (2005-12-31)
Guarded Secret Of Johnny Cash Exposed On Larry King Live

NASHVILLE, TN. (Johnny Cash Fans Website) - Appearing on Larry King Live, Tommy Cash, brother of legend Johnny Cash, portrayed in the hit movie Walk the Line, revealed the answer to a secret which has baffled millions for decades.

Larry King recently interviewed Tommy Cash about Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, his brother Johnny, and their careers for the majority of his one hour nightly program. Also appearing on the program were Dr Quinn star, Jane Seymour, John Carter Cash, son of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash and Carlene Carter.

Asked by King to solve the mystery as to why Johnny Cash took the moniker of the Man in Black, always appearing in black garb, Tommy revealed the answer to a secret that has kept fans and show business icons guessing for more than forty years.

Tommy Cash is no stranger to the country music hit parade, with chart toppers such as ‘The Sounds of Goodbye', 'Six White Horses' 'One Song Away', Rise and Shine' and 'I Recall a Gypsy Woman'.
'My brother told me; revealed Tommy, that he always wore black because it made him look thin and it didn't show dirt'. Others recalled it was also due to Johnny's championing the cause of the underdog. Solving this show business secret for a worldwide audience honoring his late brother, Tommy and King's other guests recalled Johnny's regular folks image and sense of fan intimacy that keeps the Cash name at the forefront of American music history.

Honoring the man in black with the release of 'A Musical Tribute to My Brother, Johnny Cash,' Tommy Cash and his band are touring the globe performing fan favorites such as 'Folsom Prison Blues', 'Ring of Fire', 'Give My Love to Rose' and many more. Tommy's deep and harmonic sound is often compared in richness and breadth to his brother's. 

 

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Southern Author Recalls First 'Walk the Line' Film

BY ROY HOFFMAN
Newhouse News Service


AUBURN, Ala. _ In 1967, Madison Jones, now 80, published his fourth novel, "An Exile," about a small-town sheriff who falls under the spell of a moonshiner's daughter. Soon after, Jones recalls, sitting in an easy chair in a book-filled room of his home, his literary agent called him to report that "Exile" had been sold as a movie.

"I didn't have to do anything," Jones says in his soft Tennessee accent, recounting how Gregory Peck was cast in the lead, and Tuesday Weld as the fetching girl.

The sale price, about $90,000, says Jones, was a windfall for a writing professor and his wife, Shailah, who were raising five children. And Jones hoped that the movie would give greater visibility to his book.

"But Gregory Peck didn't like the title," Jones says, puffing on one of his frequent cigars as he talks. "He thought `An Exile' sounded too political."

Director John Frankenheimer turned to a Johnny Cash song, first recorded in 1964, whose theme _ and title _ captured the novel's spirit, Jones says.

"An Exile" became "I Walk the Line." It opened in 1970, with Johnny Cash making the soundtrack.

Jones says he visited with Cash at his recording studio in Nashville.

"Cash was chummy. He introduced me to Mother Maybelle Carter and others in the clan," Jones says, referring to the mother of June Carter Cash.

"He was as flat as a bullfrog," he adds of Cash's singing style, "but everybody loved him."

Everybody, he says, did not love the movie.

"At a party after the movie, Johnny Cash expressed his disappointment with it. Gregory Peck said, `There was a good movie left on the cutting room floor."'

While "I Walk the Line" is now buried in film history, Jones says he had a flicker of hope when he saw advertisements for the new film about Johnny Cash's life, "Walk the Line."

"At first," he admits, "I thought maybe it had to do with my movie."

With his white beard, cigar and easy, colorful way of speaking, Madison Jones evokes an era gone by. "In March I'll be 81. That's in the range" _ he flashes a sly grin _ "of bucket-kicking."

 

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Johnny Cash movie recalls country star's Arkansas hometown

Dec. 30, 2005

DYESS, Ark. (AP) - The pivotal event that changed Johnny Cash's life forever was dramatically depicted on screen during this month's showing of "Walk the Line," by 20th Century Fox.

The scene in which Johnny's older brother Jack, just 14, fell into a saw, was shot on location in the town where it actually happened, Dyess, or as it was known then, Dyess Colony.

In real-life the saw accident happened at the Dyess School, near the center of town, but the movie version shows it at a nearby saw mill. On location the filmmakers chose an old building next to the Dyess City Hall, which they remade into a saw shop. A porch was added, and the interior and exterior of the building were repainted and refurbished to look antique, fitting the time frame of 1944.

"We are very proud to have had Johnny Cash come from our town," said Dyess Mayor Larry Sims. "When we were contacted about scenes from the movie being made here, in September of this year, we were thrilled. We tried to be accommodating in every way possible. We were told by the film crew that the movie makers chose Dyess for a filming site because the producers were attempting to make the movie as accurate as possible, and because of the relationship of Dyess in the life of Johnny Cash."

In the early scenes of the movie the young singer was shown growing up in Dyess and working in the fields with his parents. Cash wrote that he was a water boy for the family as they picked cotton, so they wouldn't have to leave to get a fresh drink of water. The entire family was known to sing as they picked cotton in the fields. The variety of song selections usually consisted of gospel songs heard at church and on the radio.

"Johnny was always a singer, to hear people tell it," Sims said.

Cash was born at Kingsland, Ark., on Feb. 26, 1932, one of the six children of Ray and Carrie Cash. His parents couldn't decide on a name for their new son so they just named him J.R., then decided on his full name later on.

Ray Cash brought his young family across river to Arkansas in 1935 when President Roosevelt's administration created Dyess Colony in Mississippi County, an experiment in American socialism. With no money down, the Cash family was given 20 acres of fertile bottomland and a 5-room house in which to live. The house is still standing on Mississippi County Road W924, just west of Dyess.

Johnny Cash became an accomplished songwriter and entertainer and often wrote about the days growing up in cotton country at Dyess. His family withstood the devastating floods of 1937, when the Mississippi River broke through its levees and flooded the southern area of Mississippi County. He memorialized the flood evacuation by writing "Five Feet High and Rising" in 1959.

The singer graduated from Dyess High School in 1950. A composite picture hangs at Dyess City Hall, with an inscription under his class photo which reads, "J. R. Cash, Vice Pres."

In July 1950 Johnny Cash signed up for the Air Force and left home for good. In 1954 he returned to Memphis to take a radio announcer's course part-time on the G.I. Bill while working as a door-to-door salesman. He teamed up with two garage mechanics, forming a band that came to be known as the Tennessee Two. Soon they were recording for Sun Records in Memphis, and the rest is musical history.

Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto, married in 1954 and had four daughters. He later married June Carter in 1968, and they had one son, John Carter Cash, in 1970. Johnny, Vivian and June Cash are all deceased now.

"Walk the Line" depicts the love story between Cash and Carter and how it grew through the years of traveling and entertaining together on tour. Johnny Cash is played by Joaquin Phoenix, and June Carter Cash is played by Reese Witherspoon.

In 1957 Johnny Cash wrote and recorded "Folsom Prison Blues," which sets the beat for the movie and serves as the introduction. The prison scene was filmed at the Pipkin building in Memphis.

"We have had so many people visit Dyess, because of Johnny Cash, and even more now that the movie is out," Sims said. "We are trying to develop a Johnny Cash museum here, to display memorabilia and photos of his days growing up here. There is a lot of history here, with the founding of the Dyess Colony and the hometown of Johnny Cash. In 1964 Dyess had the largest school district in Mississippi County. We had a hospital, a movie theater, and a lot of people came in and out of town. We are looking into obtaining grants to help us with our project.

Memories of the young singer are plentiful in the area.

"Johnny was a friend and a classmate of mine," said J. E. Huff. "We played together. I recall the day he went fishing and his brother Jack went to work on the radial arm saw at the school. Our school was very modern and had the latest equipment. We were all proud to have that saw to work with.

"Our citizens took keen interest in the making of the movie," Sims said. "They wanted to see every detail, even if it was not true to life. They especially loved it when Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Johnny in the movie, came to town. A bar scene was shot in the back of the sawmill, with him in it, but it was cut from the movie."

"Phoenix just came walking into my grocery about a week before the movie was to be filmed and introduced himself," said O.D. Gladdin. "I didn't know who he was, but my grandson did. He was very nice and friendly and said he had rented a car to drive from Memphis to Dyess and look it over. I was glad that he wanted to come and take his time looking around."

There have been so many pictures published of Cash and the movie that Dyess city secretary, Lisa Wroten, has developed a database to hold the many pictures that have emerged, some old and some new.

Melton Emery of Caraway and Jerald Burns of Palestine brought the Johnny Cash tour bus to Dyess earlier this year, and let the townspeople have their picture taken with it. They are both antique tractor, truck and car enthusiasts and have worked as suppliers for area movies, as well as with transportation. The mule in the opening scene of "Walk the Line," belongs to Emery. He also provided the equipment and set decorations for the sawmill scene at Dyess.

"I would love for there to be a Cash museum here, as people have shown a keen interest in artifacts and vehicles of the 1950s," said Burns. "Visiting Dyess is like stepping back in time. It has a rich history and everyone is friendly to newcomers."

 

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Old depot Cash saved given back to Madison. Group needs $35,000 for move

By KATE HOWARD, Staff Writer

Thursday, 12/29/05

HENDERSONVILLE — Madison's community leaders see a glimpse of their town's future in a little gray building out on Johnny Cash Parkway.



The paint is peeling on the nearly 100-year-old structure that was once the center of Old Madison, built between Louisville & Nashville Railroad's tracks. The Amqui Station was out of commission and near demolition when the late country legend Johnny Cash bought it in 1979 and relocated it to his 2.5 acres in Hendersonville, dubbed the House of Cash.


Halo Properties, the developer that purchased the property after Cash's death, is now donating the train station back to Madison through the Madison Rivergate Area Chamber of Commerce. Many see it as a way to restore some of the town's old glory by putting a piece of its history back at the center.

"For many years, we had generations of the same families and everyone knew each other," said Nathan Massey, president of Discover Madison Inc.'s board of directors. "The demographics have changed, and since then Madison has lost some of its identity."

Discover Madison Inc., a nonprofit formed by the chamber of commerce to revitalize Madison's downtown area, is handling the relocation.



In Amqui Station, Debbie Pace, chamber of commerce president, sees a chance to make a name for Madison with a museum highlighting its past within the station's own historic walls.

If the agency can secure a spot near the railroad tracks, Pace also would like to see the transplanted building as part of the commuter rail system in the works by the Metro Transit Authority.

"Madison never incorporated and didn't get its own government," Pace said of the Metro Nashville community. "We don't want to get lost in the shuffle."

The station has sat idle for several years, since June Carter Cash fell ill and died.

A smiling picture of her hangs on the wall above dusty furniture, leftovers from the inventory she sold out of the station.

Johnny Cash said in 1979 that he was buying the station because of his love of trains and wanted to display all his memorabilia, but a sign resting behind the door declares it "June Carter Cash's Antiques."

A pile of old vinyl records and train log books sit near the switch that used to move the tracks for the trains chugging through Madison.

Discover Madison needs to raise at least $35,000 just to have the station moved, not counting any costs to set up a museum and securing land to put it on.

The hope is to put the building at 301 Madison St.

The organization plans to hire the same company to move the station back to Madison that Johnny Cash had hired to relocate it to Hendersonville more than two decades ago.

With the building back in town, Massey hopes to see a renewed sense of community in Madison.

With so many families moving away and new families coming into Madison, Massey said, some of the pride in the community has been chipped away.

"We hope that by bringing this icon back, we can restore some of that pride," Massey said.

 

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38 Years after Johnny Cash's Historic Concert at Folsom, Prison Fellowship Invites Leading Oscar(R) Contender ‘Walk the Line’ to Screen for Inmates at the California Penitentiary

Film to Screen on January 3, 2006 at Folsom; Joaquin Phoenix, who Portrays Cash in ‘WALK THE LINE,’ to Attend

Tuesday, December 27, 2005


Represa, CA--(HISPANIC PR WIRE - BUSINESS WIRE)--December 21, 2005--On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash took the stage at Folsom State Prison for a historic concert that galvanized the audience of hundreds of inmates. Cash, despite strong resistance from his record label, was moved to perform at Folsom after receiving thousands of letters from prison inmates around the country, explaining how his music had put them on the path to rehabilitation and redemption. Respecting, rather than fearing his audience at Folsom, Cash connected with the men, all of whom were doing hard time.

Now, nearly four decades later, the Prison Fellowship and Folsom Chaplain Larry West have invited Twentieth Century Fox and actor Joaquin Phoenix to screen the Cash biopic "WALK THE LINE" for inmates at the penitentiary; Mr. Phoenix portrays the legendary "Man in Black"
in the picture. The studio and Mr. Phoenix have accepted the invitation, and the film will screen at Folsom on January 3, 2006. The Fellowship hopes "WALK THE LINE," a leading Oscar contender, will inspire the prisoners, much as Cash's 1968 concert did.

"We invited Twentieth Century Fox to screen "WALK THE LINE" at Folsom because the lesson of Johnny Cash is that it's never too late for a man to turn his life around, and that's a story these men need to hear," said Joe Avila, California Executive Director, Prison Fellowship.

"John believed in the power of redemption and offered his unique gift to anyone who needed to find it within them, and in the process, he inspired millions. I can think of no greater way to honor him than to carry on his legacy of using music to connect to all people," added Joaquin Phoenix.

Founded in 1976 by Chuck Colson, Prison Fellowship partners with local churches across the country to minister to a group that society often scorns and neglects: prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families.

"WALK THE LINE" opened in theaters nationwide on November 18, 2005. 

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Cash biopic to be screened to inmates

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

The forthcoming eagerly anticipated Johnny Cash biopic film, 'Walk The Line' will be screened to inmates at Folsom Prison in the New Year, the place where Cash heroically played a gig in 1968.

The country star won the hero status of over 2,000 inmates when he played at the rough prison in January 38 years ago. On January 3rd the film's star Joaquin Pheonix will introduce the exclusive screening of 'Walk The Line'.

Film director James Mangold told Daily Variety, "The concert at Folsom was more than just a masterpiece for Johnny, it was also an incredible nexus for a lot of things in his life.

"Only 13 days before the concert, his previous marriage had completely dissolved, he was just kicking durgs, and it was the first time he was really able to look clear-eyed to June Carter as both husband and a father."

It is hoped showing the film to the inmates will help them realize that it's never too late to turn your life around.

'Walk The Line' is released in the UK on February 3rd.

 

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Witherspoon and Phoenix Said to be "Sick" of Each Other

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Reese Witherspoon says her and co-star Joaquin Phoenix got "sick" of each other while filming Johnny Cash biopic, ‘Walk The Line'.
The 'Legally Blonde' actress said towards the end of filming they could hardly bear to be near each other.

She said: "We had so much time together. He'd get sick of me. I'd get sick of him. He'd make me stand further away because my singing was too loud." Meanwhile, Phoenix is to host a special screening of new Johnny Cash biopic ‘Walk The Line' at Folsom State Prison - the place where Cash famously played a controversial concert for inmates.

The Hollywood actor, who stars as the late country singer in the film, will introduce the movie at the screening, organized by the film's distributors 20th Century Fox, on January 3.

Cash's original performance at the Californian jail, in 1968, was made into a live album and the concert is depicted in the critically acclaimed movie.

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Johnny Cash's Tour Bus Rolls into Ohio for Makeover

DECEMBER 19, 2005 - Posted at 7:42 a.m. CST



GROVE CITY, OH - Johnny Cash's tour bus is being refurbished in central Ohio.

Collector Dave Wright of North Carolina bought the 1979 MCI bus on eBay last month for $62,000 from a car dealer in St. Louis. He drove it to Grove City, Ohio last week to be restored.

Cash traveled on the bus, dubbed J.C. Unit One, from 1979 until 2003.

Cash and fellow country starts Willie Nelson, Waylong Jennings and Kris Kristofferson toured together on the bus as The Highwaymen in 1991.

Wright hopes the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville will eventually display Cash's 40-foot-long bus. Museum officials have told Wright they're not sure if they have room for it.

Cash, an Arkansas native, spent most of his childhood and developmental years in the Dyess community (Mississippi County). He died in September of 2003 in Nashville.

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More From Bridgeton News
If it's Johnny Cash, she has it
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
By MATT DUNN
Staff Writer

MAURICE RIVER TWP. -- Sharon Johnson, a 50-year-old state employee from Dorchester, has seen the new movie "Walk the Line" three times.

The film is a biopic about legendary musician Johnny Cash, who died a little more than two years ago.

Johnson, who owns more than 100 of Cash's albums and hundreds of items of memorabilia, may be the performer's biggest fan in all of South Jersey.

She's befriended the legendary musician's daughter, Cathy.

She's been to his former home in Hendersonville, Tenn.

She's attended hundreds of his concerts and sat backstage at one memorable performance in 1994.

She's met Cash on three occasions.

Step into her home and you'll be greeted by Juney, her dog, named after Cash's late wife, June Carter Cash.

Enter into her kitchen and you'll be overwhelmed by a wall of photographs of famous country music stars.

In the center of that wall -- and her adoration -- is Cash.

"He's a true artist," Johnson remarked, gazing over her vast collection of memorabilia that filled her modest bungalow wall-to-wall during a visit last Thursday.

Johnson apologized for the mess.

Most of the time her collection is stored away, save two large portraits of Cash and his wife June Carter Cash that hang high on her wall like portraits of beloved relatives.

Johnson's love for the "Man in Black" goes back to when she was 12.

That's when she first saw the performer on television. Soon after, her parents bought her a copy of the album, "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison."

Her mother and father supported her fandom, but if it had been up to her dad, she may have wound up a fan of crooner Tom Jones.

Johnson recalled her father's words the first time she went to see Cash play in concert.

"Why would you want to see someone who talks about prison and criminals?" he asked.

"I don't know if it was his magnetism. I just related to him," Johnson said. "He was always honest. Even up until he died."

Even though her father would have rather seen Tom Jones, he took her to see Cash at the Philadelphia Spectrum anyway when she was 12.

It wasn't until the Dorchester woman was 21, however, that she met the performer for the first time.

From that time on, she's amassed a more-than-impressive collection of memorabilia.

Along with that original pressing of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison that started it all, she has several items of Cash's clothing, an autographed guitar case, one of his harmonicas, and much more.

One is a home video of Cash, his ex-wife Vivian, and daughters Roseanne and Cathy, at a family picnic circa 1957.

Johnson said she believes only three copies exist.

As far as getting to visit Cash's home and getting to go backstage at one of his concerts, she credits her husband, who has a way with making friends with well-connected people.

Never once has her husband been jealous of her love of Cash. Not even when she mentions a pair of Cash's underwear she owns.

"He's very supportive," Johnson said.

Is there a point where fandom goes a little far?

Johnson said she thinks she may be at the end of the line as far as items to collect.

Most of Cash's personal belongings have been auctioned off.

But as long as the music's still around, as it was last Thursday playing through her stereo, Johnson said she'll be a fan forever.

 

*****
Grove City, OH
Johnny Cash's Tour Bus Rolls into Ohio for Makeover

DECEMBER 19, 2005 - Posted at 7:42 a.m. CST



GROVE CITY, OH - Johnny Cash's tour bus is being refurbished in central Ohio.

Collector Dave Wright of North Carolina bought the 1979 MCI bus on eBay last month for $62,000 from a car dealer in St. Louis. He drove it to Grove City, Ohio last week to be restored.

Cash traveled on the bus, dubbed J.C. Unit One, from 1979 until 2003.

Cash and fellow country starts Willie Nelson, Waylong Jennings and Kris Kristofferson toured together on the bus as The Highwaymen in 1991.

Wright hopes the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville will eventually display Cash's 40-foot-long bus. Museum officials have told Wright they're not sure if they have room for it.

Cash, an Arkansas native, spent most of his childhood and developmental years in the Dyess community (Mississippi County). He died in September of 2003 in Nashville.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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Cash Home Sold

December 16, 2005

After months on the market, the former home of country music legend Johnny Cash has been sold.

Cash's youngest brother says the 7-bedroom home located in Hendersonville has changed hands. The new owner wants to remain anonymous. Tommy Cash also declined to reveal the selling price. The home and its 4 1/2 acres was listed for $2.5 million. 

******

 

Memories of Memphis From Annie

Cash Memories in Memphis 

December 15, 2005

I thought you all might enjoy seeing this photo of the duplex on Tutwiler (in Memphis) where Johnny and Vivian lived just after getting married. Vivian told me many happy stories of life in this little duplex.

This is the front porch where Johnny came running home to tell Vivian the news about his (successful) audition with Sam Phillips. They both screamed in excitement and Johnny picked her up and swung her around.

I took this photo when I was passing through Memphis last year, and I sent it to Vivian. She was so thrilled to see the house again.


 

This is a photo of the first home (on Sandy Cove in Memphis) that Johnny and Vivian bought after his first success. Many more happy times were spent here. Vivian was thrilled to see this photo too.

 

And finally, this is a photo of the Overton Park Shell in Memphis that I found on the internet and shared with Vivian. She was astounded that she recognized it (without me telling her what it was) as being the venue where Johnny had his first public performancce opening for Elvis. It was an exciting night. Vivian was so proud.

*****

 
Johnny Cash Slept Here
A dispiriting visit to the Man in Black's childhood home.
By Paul Reyes
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005, at 5:20 PM ET


Among the farmers' fields of Mississippi County, Ark., through a couple of jags that aren't even on the map, there's a country-music holy site: the blighted little town of Dyess (population 515), where Johnny Cash grew up. You wouldn't realize this just by pulling into town, unless you happen to stop at the café, where framed, photocopied pictures of Cash are the only public tribute to him. Otherwise, there is no sign, no fuss about it. Johnny Cash grew up here, Johnny Cash left. Now and then he visited, but not for long.

James Mangold's Walk the Line makes Dyess a somewhat more famous detail of Cash's life, providing just enough back story to decode the Man in Black's persona: raised poor; picked cotton for an abusive father; adored by a songbird mother; obsessed with the radio; goofed off the day his idol and older brother Jack was killed working at the sawmill; racked with survivor's guilt ever since. This last detail informs much of Mangold's portrait, and the music just happens to come from, well, somewhere.

What the movie never captures is the archaic sense of place in Cash's songs, an aspect that gets better with age but that has all but evaporated from country music. So much of Cash's music evolved out of where he came from. The chic-a-tuck of trains, which shook his birth home in nearby Kingsland—that sound was Cash's rhythmic signature. The gospel songs his mother taught him infused his own music with a kind of reckoning. Perhaps it helped that biblical phenomena came to life in Dyess, in the flood that swallowed their farm in 1937 (fabled in "Five Feet High and Rising"), and in the plague of army worms that crawled across the river and leveled the family crop.

Distilling the biographical blueprint of those songs, that's where my pilgrimage to Dyess came in, to see the physical realities that would help drive deeper what Cash meant when he wrote in his autobiography that "in Arkansas, a way of life produced a certain kind of music." I went to Dyess to glean what that way of life must have been, to catch an empathetic vibe from the land—and better, from the house where he grew up, which stands intact but belongs to someone else now. All the deciphering of the Cash mythology seemed to beg for such a trip. His music had been a primer, and Walk the Line was still a few weeks away (and, as I suspected, didn't answer what I wanted to know). Besides, Graceland had always seemed too easy; the Dakota was depressing; Johnny Cash's house—unmemorialized, raw, still possessing a bit of Cash's essence—that was the musical pilgrimage worth taking.

The trip from Little Rock to Dyess took just a couple of hours, with crunk and hot-country and talk shows clogging the FM frequency, not much else on the AM, and none of it connecting with any of the roadside flotsam (dead machinery, car parts, sagging barns). Once in town, I looked for the sawmill where Jack was injured (burned down), sneaked over to Cash's old school (burned down), and finally got directions to the house: just past a pair of small bridges and down a gravel road, and keep going, down about a mile or so until you see it there on the left, which I did not recognize until I'd passed it several times. For one thing, I was looking for cotton, which they don't grow in Dyess anymore—not on Cash's old land, anyway. Soybeans grow there. I think it was a chair tipped over in the yard that slowed me down, that and a satellite dish I recognized from a recent picture. I pulled over, checked for signs of a dog, and meekly walked onto the porch and knocked on the door.

I was told to enter and looked around for any reliable witnesses, saw none, steeled myself, and went on in and saw Willie Stegall sitting in his recliner, his cigar dominating the room, a Grand Prix on the television. Willie wasn't fazed at all by this visit; he said he'd gotten used to all the attention, though it was rare that someone actually tapped on the door. "A lot of 'em slow down and take a few pictures, and if you go outside to see, they'll take right off." Stegall said he never means them any harm—he's just curious about the curious—but he does get a kick out of watching the more paranoid Cash fans leap back into their cars and speed away.

He talked about his visitors: reporters from Australia, some cultural council from Memphis, a tourist from China ("Some of 'em you can't even understand. So I just say, 'Yeah,' and go on."), and a woman who stuffed her trunk with soybeans, thinking they were cotton. Most recently the cast and crew of Walk the Line had descended, including Joaquin Phoenix himself. Stegall described him as a, "Nice boy … talked his head off." Stegall said that location scouts had shown up months ago to get a feel for the place, and were disappointed there was no cotton, and so took some measurements and built a replica of the house and slapped it down on a cotton field somewhere in Mississippi instead, he couldn't remember where.

The house was, admittedly, kind of a mess, with clothes and stuff scattered about. He grumbled something about the maid not coming that week. You put your best effort into a pilgrimage like this, staring around: This was where Johnny Cash played the piano; where his mother read the Old Testament out loud; where his father beat him; where the family mourned by a deathbed. This had all happened, sure, but transposing it onto all of Mr. Stegall's renovations was tough work. The kitchen had been remodeled. A bedroom was a dining room now. There was carpet. He had Kodachromes of his own life tacked to the wall, which was covered with a pine paneling he'd put up himself. He pointed to the low drop ceiling (yes, of course, no drop ceilings in 1936), and it really wasn't until I asked about the rustic, dilapidated outbuildings I could see through the sliding glass door that I realized that those were his dilapidated outbuildings (and, of course, his sliding glass door). Every detail he pointed out kept swatting down all my sentimentality. This had been his house for 30 years now, and he was by no means a Cash devotee. A mild fan, maybe, with records stored in a closet, but without even a turntable to play them. No, he said, the fields outside didn't belong to him, they'd been sold long ago. But I could go out there and walk around if I wanted to.

A soybean field seemed kind of pointless. I stepped out onto the gravel road instead, looked both ways, and admired its length and straightness, which suggested what it meant to walk a couple of miles to town every morning as a boy. (Cash did a legendary amount of walking growing up.) The crunch of gravel underfoot produced a good, thick rhythm. And standing still, you could tap into a Zen-like groove with all the close and distant sounds: one bird twittering, bugs chirping farther off, no trains but instead the high soft whine of cars on the macadam a mile away.

Preparing to leave, I scoped the yard for some memento to take with me. Cash had planted six cottonwoods with his father when they moved here, and only three were left—a withering one in particular that leaned a little pale and bare on the west side of the yard. Just a small branch would do. But I couldn't reach it. Well, I figured a piece of bark was just as good. Mr. Stegall chastised me for being so cheap: "You don't want that dirty ol' piece of that tree," he said. I saw a brick in the dirt. "How about that brick there? Is it from when the house was built?" He stared. "To be honest with you, I don't know. But here—" and he leaned down to where the house tilted on a block, grabbed at the siding, and ripped a piece off. "Here you go," he said, and handed it to me, no ceremony. I took it, but with a weird, deflated feeling. A false idolatry spoiled, though it was probably just as well since you can't play a Johnny Cash song on just a chunk of house. Well, you could, maybe, but it wouldn't sound anything like the original.

*****

 
Cash’s Forty Shades of Green

By Debbie McGoldrick
The new Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line is, in a word, superb, and it got us thinking about the country legend’s Scotch Irish roots.

Though he was always known as the Man in Black, Cash was also the guy who loved the green, as in Ireland, so much so that he penned a song, “Forty Shades of Green,” after his first trip there in the 1960s.

The lyrics go like this: “I close my eyes and picture the emerald of the sea; from the fishing boats at Dingle to the shores of Dundee; I miss the River Shannon and folks at Skipa-Ree; the moor lands and the midlands with their forty shades of green.” Lyrics from a proud Scots Irish American for sure!

Cash performed all over Ireland on a countless number of occasions, and he loved the country for being a place where he could “get away from it all,” as he was fond of saying.

Johnny Cash

Of course Johnny’s beloved June Carter was with him on his Irish tours, and in one Internet report we found about a show they did at the Carlton Cinema in Dublin in the early 1960s, the Statler Brothers were the opening act.

Johnny’s lifelong band, the Tennessee Three, elder statesmen now just as their leader would have been if he were still alive, are resuscitating their career now that Walk the Line has reignited interest in all things Cash.

The band is preparing a new Cash tribute album, We Still Miss Someone, and guess where they just completed a multi-date tour? Yup, the land of the forty shades of green.

A galaxy of recording artists, both contemporary and old timers, were influenced by Cash’s trail-blazing greatness, including, of course, U2. At the time of Cash’s death in 2003 Bono said, “I considered myself a friend, he considered me a fan - he indulged me. He showed me around his house, his ranch, his zoo (seriously, he had a zoo in Nashville), his faith, his musicianship — it was a lot to take in. He was more than wise. In a garden full of weeds — the oak tree.”

U2 and Cash recorded a song together called “The Wanderer,” which appears on the band’s 1993 album Zooropa. The band and Cash go way back, having first hooked up in the 1980s.

In an old Rolling Stone interview, Bono remembered how Cash’s dark humour was on display during a meal he shared with Cash and U2 bassist Adam Clayton.

“We bowed our heads and John spoke this beautiful, poetic grace,” Bono said, “and we were all humbled and moved. Then he looked up afterwards and said, ‘Sure miss the drugs, though.’”

 

 

*******

 

Film walks line between fact and fiction
Monday, December 12, 2005 9:50 AM CST

By JAKE BECKWITH
Texarkana Gazette

Some moviegoers who saw “Walk the Line” in theaters assumed Johnny Cash and June Carter really did meet for the first time during a musical performance on a Texarkana, Texas, stage.

The first time actors Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, who play Cash and Carter respectively, are seen together on screen is during a scene that occurs backstage of a 1955 concert featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Cash. The filmmakers even typed Texarkana, Texas, in white letters at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

The couple’s introduction on film begins with Cash stealing a glimpse of Carter as he strums his guitar before taking the stage. The director then switches perspectives to show Carter sneaking a peek at Cash just moments after he stopped giving her the eye. As fate would have it, Carter then catches her outfit in his guitar strap as she makes her way to the stage.

“He was certainly on the circuit with a lot of major performers. It is likely he came here... during that time period. We (Museum of Regional History) don’t have pictures of Johnny Cash (in Texarkana) at that time. He would have played at the Municipal Auditorium because it was the largest (auditorium) at the time. Downtown, at the time, was the busiest area. That is where these performers would perform,” said Ina McDowell, executive director of Museum of Regional History in Texarkana.

Although she said Texarkana College also had an auditorium on the Texas-side of Texarkana during the 1950-60s, McDowell said Cash would have “more than likely” played at the Arkansas Municipal Auditorium in Texarkana, Ark., as opposed to the other venue on the college campus.

Frank Poff, president of commission for the Arkansas Municipal Auditorium, said he saw “Walk the Line” in theaters. He confirmed Cash did perform at the AMA during the 1950s.

“It is true Johnny played at the Arkansas Municipal Auditorium. They (filmmakers) had a long scene that took place in (a fictional version of) the auditorium. It had a balcony. It looked like the auditorium looked like, which was cool,” he said.

Coincidentally, the Texarkana College yearbooks for 1955, 1956, and 1957 also did not give any indication of a concert on campus featuring Cash.

Though he was impressed with the depiction of the AMA in the film, Poff did point out there were some inconsistencies between real life and reel life. In real life, the AMA is located in Texarkana, Ark., as opposed to Texarkana, Texas. However, the discrepancies did not detract from Poff’s enjoyment of the film.

The truth is Carter and Cash actually first met at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. Though they both traveled to Texarkana, especially in the early stages of his career, the Twin Cities can not lay claim to the birthplace of what developed into a life-long love affair.

However, one cannot blame moviegoers for jumping to conclusions about Texarkana’s role after seeing the film. Nor can anyone blame the filmmakers for taking some liberties with some of the details. “Walk the Line” covers the rise of the Man in Black and his decade-long courtship of June Carter. The goal of the filmmakers appears to be to accurately capture the struggles of building a long-term relationship. The movie follows the rise, fall and resurrection of Cash’s musical career and condenses it into about two hours and 15 minutes of screen time.

“It was a great movie and Phoenix did a great job. Reese Witherspoon was truly incredible as June Carter. I would be shocked if she didn’t get an Oscar nomination and surprised if she didn’t win,” Poff said.

Anyone looking for a completely accurate history lesson about Cash and Carter should not depend on “Walk the Line” to get all the facts right. However, the film may hit closer to the truth about the couple’s relationship than either of Cash’s autobiographies. The filmmakers set out to show how love can triumph over addiction and lead a flawed man to find redemption.

“The story of John and June as a couple was so beautiful and is such a uniquely American love story that you couldn’t have written it any better than the real thing,” said “Walk the Line” Director James Mangold in the film’s press kit.

 

******

Run in with Cash leaves columnist with humorous scars
By: DAVE WILSON, 

December 07, 2005


Most of us have done or said really stupid and embarrassing things at some point in our lives.
Things that make us want to hide under the covers and never come out until the world is a different place and no one remembers. I have committed my share of gaffs, but the one that really stands out in my memory has to do with none other than the late Johnny Cash.


I could not wait to get down to the Cameo Theatre to see Walk the Line, the newly-released movie of portions of the late singer's life. The film was a pleasant surprise and on the order of Ray in terms of script excellence, acting and photography. But I digress. I was writing about absolute humiliation and Johnny Cash, the man and legend in his own time

It was in the mid 1980s. As I recall, US AIR was then Piedmont Airlines. I and an associate were flying to Denver for a meeting. The flight originated in Fayetteville, stopped in Charlotte, then Nashville and on to Denver. I flew a lot back then, so the local Piedmont staff would fix me up with first class seating if space was available, at no extra charge.

Those were the days indeed.

When we descended to the Nashville airport I commented to my associate that we might see some Nashville music stars board, as a joke, of course. No sooner said than up the stairs and into the cabin comes June Carter followed by the man himself.

I leaned to my right and whispered to Rick, "It's Johnny Cash and his wife June ... what is her last name?" "Carter" he quickly replied. "Oh, of course," I responded, "Carter, that's it, I knew that, I just forgot for the moment." The pair stood in the aisle getting their seating located. June wore a mink jacket with a matching hat, and the man in black wore unvarying black.

I was celebrity berserk. I went to my feet and as Cash towered above my six foot frame, I asked in a voice as respectful as I could muster, "Excuse me Mr. Carter, but could I please have your autograph?" Johnny Cash looked at me as if I was the idiot that I was. "The name is Cash," he said, as he jotted his name on the back of my business card, "John Cash." "Oh, I am sorry," I muttered. "I know that." But it was too late. The words were out.

I slumped back in my seat, not believing my stupidity. My seatmate was trembling with suppressed laughter. Mr. and Mrs. Cash sat down and the flight continued. I glanced back once and across the aisle after we took off. They both were reading hardbound books, and June Carter was possibly thinking, "Aha, I told you all along that I was the most well known."

Later at the convention we were attending the story got around thanks to my Sales VP who could not contain this tidbit about the boss. People I hardly knew would walk up to me and say, "Excuse me, Mr. Carter."

So, Walk the Line was an opportunity to compare a screen portrayal with my recollection of the man. Joaquin Phoenix was superb as Cash. He duplicated the singer's presence on stage perfectly. Off stage I can only surmise, except when someone gets his name wrong.

*****



Bird in a Gilded Cage
Dan Neil Latimes.com : Magazine

December 11, 2005 


Among Johnny Cash's lifetime achievements—a buckboard full of Grammys, admission into both the Rock and Roll and Country Music halls of fame, that enviable blue-black pompadour—is this: He executed the definitive middle-finger salute.

The scene: San Quentin Prison, Feb. 24, 1969. Cash is behind the curtain of a makeshift stage. Photographer Jim Marshall asks Johnny if he has a message for the warden. In a blur, like a gunfighter, Cash draws and fires his middle finger in an expression of furious, summary loathing. At the moment the shutter winks, Cash's mouth is forming the "F" of a phrase no one need wonder about.

Talk about sticking the dismount. In the Olympics of contempt, Cash's digitus impudicus scores a perfect 10.

I love this photo, and not simply because it makes a swell T-shirt. There is something purely spooky about it, some quality of demonic possession. This is the look, the final enraged gesture, of a convict shoved in the back once too often and now has snapped. Cash was never that man. He had been thrown in the tank a few times but he never went to prison. Yet he'd done time in penitentiaries of his own making and knew what it was like to hate the jailer.

I spent much of Thanksgiving Day listening to "Cash, the Legend: a Four-Part Radio Special" on my local NPR station. In mid-November, CBS aired a star-studded tribute—because that's what stars do, stud things—called "I Walk the Line: A Night For Johnny Cash," timed to the release of the Cash biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.

During this media run-up, a lot of images of Cash have resurfaced: pomaded rockabilly cool cat, Bergman-esque Man in Black, he who walks with Christ. In his last music video—a stunning rendition of Trent Reznor's "Hurt," filmed less than a year before his death in 2003—Cash sings his own requiem as a trembling, abyss-staring penitent, and if you ever saw it, you can't forget it.

But history's eye tends to be reductive—Marilyn's dress is forever swanning from a subway updraft, Woody Guthrie is eternally holding the guitar that says "This machine kills fascists"—and if we canonize only one image of Cash, let it be the one taken by Marshall: Cash the profane and angry man, Cash the finger-waving dissident, ever at war with authority.

And Nashville. Marshall's photo became famous in 1998, when Rick Rubin, Cash's producer, used it as a full-page ad in Billboard, celebrating the Grammy win for Cash's album "Unchained." It read: "American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support." The joke, of course, is that the country music establishment gave the album no support. Cash's fillip was, in part, a gesture of solidarity with old-guard country artists such as Merle Haggard, George Jones and Willie Nelson, who were getting squeezed off radio by the syrupy likes of Shania Twain and Kenny Chesney.

It wasn't the first time Cash shamed Nashville. In 1964, he took out an ad in Billboard criticizing radio stations for refusing to play his "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," the story of a Pima Indian who returned from World War II a hero but died in a ditch, unloved by the country he fought to save. " 'Ballad of Ira Hayes' is strong medicine," Cash wrote. "So is Rochester, Harlem, Birmingham and Vietnam."

Country music's audience is politically reactionary—witness the blowback against the Dixie Chicks after one of them slammed President Bush at a London concert in 2003—but Cash's opposition to the war in Vietnam was hard for Middle America to dismiss, because he was hard to dismiss. Cash was the slightly pummeled, jug-eared American Everyman, the God-fearing son of an Arkansas sharecropper. Even Cash's voice—with its Sunday-choir profundo and flame-like wavering—sounded as though it came from a trucker who stumbled into the spotlight while looking for a cup of coffee.

Cash's opposition to the Vietnam War probably softened up more hard heads than a hundred hippie marches. Likewise, when Congressman John Murtha—an indisputable hawk and highly decorated Marine, virtually Swift Boat-proof—recently called for the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, he rattled the convictions of a lot of the war's supporters.

"Walk the Line" is a polished but safely apolitical bit of filmmaking, and it doesn't touch Johnny Cash's legacy as a redneck dissident. He was a man with a well-honed and principled distrust for earthly authority. In an America spellbound by power—presidents, soldiers, wardens—that's the harder line to walk. 

 

****

Cash, Underwood among top holiday music picks

12/09/2005

By JOHN GEROME / Associated Press

Two American idols are ruling the cash register this holiday season.

Carrie Underwood, latest winner of the "American Idol" TV show, has the No. 1 album on Billboard's country chart, while the late icon Johnny Cash holds the No. 3 and 13 spots.

Cash's top entry is a greatest hits package, "The Legend of Johnny Cash," and the other a movie soundtrack to the hit biopic "Walk the Line."

"We sell a lot of Cash all through the year, but I think it's increased since the movie," said Kelly Keene, manager of Earnest Tubb Record Shop, an old brick building set among rows of bars and honky tonks downtown. "People come in and say, 'I don't really like country music, but I like Johnny Cash.'"

But Underwood and Cash won't be enough to reverse a slump in country music sales in 2005. With business off about 10 percent this year, the industry is hoping for the best — and expecting the worst.

"I'd like to end on a good note, but the reality is that this will probably end up as one of the worst Christmas seasons ever," said Ben Kline, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Universal Music Group Nashville. "We had some major, major releases in 2004 and those records aren't there this year. The guys in the middle are probably doing OK, but you need those big, big records to drive the bus."

Sales from mid-November through New Year's Eve are critical in the industry, accounting for 30 percent or more of the year's total.

Record labels often load the final quarter with their biggest releases. This year, for example, records by Underwood, Cash, Kenny Chesney, Garth Brooks, Big & Rich, Martina McBride and Reba McEntire all came out around the holidays.

"It's where you really make the year for the most part," said Joe Galante, chairman of RCA Label Group/Nashville. "In that six-week period you can do what you normally do in six months."

Even so, when 2005 ends, Kline and others expect sales to remain down by about 10 percent. On top of the soft release schedule, the country music industry was hurt by the Gulf Coast hurricanes and soaring gas prices.

"It's a lot harder to sell CDs when gas is $3 a gallon than when it's $2 a gallon," Sony Music Nashville President John Grady said.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment had other problems as well. Last month the music giant pulled some of its most popular CDs from stores after complaints that anti-piracy software on the discs made them vulnerable to computer viruses.

The "XCP" copy-protection program was included on at least 20 titles, including a Sony Nashville release by country rockers Van Zant.

Grady said the problem has been corrected and the CDs restocked, but there were about two weeks when shoppers couldn't buy them in stores.

"It hurt to have a product pulled out of stores in the middle of the season," he said. "When you lose a sale at retail, it's twice as hard to get it back because a lot of music is bought on impulse, and people's impulses will take them to another piece of music."

Sales are down across most musical genres, with overall sales off about 7 percent through September, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Underwood's strong showing should help. Her first album, "Some Hearts," has big crossover potential. It debuted last month at No. 1 on Billboard's country chart and No. 2 on its overall albums chart.

Cash has always transcended musical lines. His current resurgence is driven by the movie, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as his wife, June Carter Cash.

"Movies are sort of strange drivers. They can be over in a weekend or can attain a whole different life," Grady said. "In the case of this movie, it will be a very strong two- or three-month film right through the center of the holidays." 




****

 

Jules Vilmur: Trying to grasp the mystique of Johnny Cash

December 2, 2005


I remember distinctly, where I was and how I felt when I first heard that Johnny Cash was gone. Standing in the archway between our living room and kitchen, twisting a dishrag in my hands as I watched the news scroll across the bottom of the television screen, my heart sank. It's one of those things we all accept but can never quite explain; how the passing of an icon can affect us on a deeply personal level.

Later that night, Remy and I sat out on the porch with a bottle of whiskey, listening to the most haunting track of Johnny's final CD, his cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" and trying to figure out just what it was that set him apart, and what manner of magic he possessed, lifting him to legendary status and compelling two California kids like us to take his passing so damn personally.

Two short years later, we were lined up at the box office, paying homage to that magic. Who could resist? Especially when they put attractive "now" faces on legendary "then" icons, and tempt us with a glimpse of a black boot, a guitar held like a rifle, and that odd, half-mouth grimace behind a microphone. It's a rare thing to sell three generations of America on a film with a mere 30 seconds of shadows and hinting. It is rarer still to follow up such promises with both substance and style. Thankfully, "Walk the Line" delivers on both.

Coming out of the theater, the woman behind us proclaimed "Walk the Line" to be "The white 'Ray'" and indeed, their similarities seem lifted from of that now clichéd VH-1 "Behind the Music" format. Poor but talented boy makes it big, struggles with fame and excess, and somehow manages to come shining out the other side. Of course in Johnny's case, that "somehow manages" is personified in June Carter.

Of all the great love stories in the history of love stories, you couldn't write one better than June Carter and Johnny Cash. And more than anything else it might be, "Walk the Line" is, at its heart, a love story of mythic proportions. As an examination of Cash's legendary mystique, however, "Walk The Line" fails to hit the mark. It never attains the emotional complexity of "Capote," nor does it even attempt to touch upon the later years of his life, upon the Johnny Cash that I remember, with grim determination and that gritty, deep strength.

I suppose it's a testament to the filmmakers that I wanted to sit through two more hours, that I wanted to follow those actors, inhabiting those characters, through another 35 years of love and music. That I wanted just one more glimpse like the 10 or 20, when the shadows fell just right and I could half-close my eyes and convince myself that I saw Johnny Cash in Joaquin Phoenix.

Which reminds me that I owe Joaquin Phoenix an apology. You see, until "Walk The Line" I always watched him on-screen with a bit of resentment. After all, it was his brother River who was destined for greatness, a Teen Beat god as well as my generation's great white hope for the survival of the art of acting. I remember where I was and precisely how I felt in that moment when I heard that River Phoenix was gone. And for one of those reasons we all accept but can never quite explain; my heart sank.

So while everyone is talking about the parallels between Johnny and Joaquin both losing favored brothers at a young age, the parallels between Johnny and Ray, I can't help but think that it is the parallels between any one of us and any one of them, for that matter, between you and I, well these are the things — and this is the reason — that the passing of someone we never knew can touch us deeply in ways we can't explain.

Contact Jules Vilmur at Jules@lilywhiteintentions.com.

*****

 

Walking and talking with Johnny Cash
Filmmaker James Mangold recalls interviewing the American icon and his wife about their musical lives. Getting them to discuss their romance was a different story.
By Steven Rosen
Special to The Denver Post


Considering how well James Mangold - the director/co-writer of "Walk the Line" - knows Johnny Cash's life and habits, it's odd that he is tentative about one crucial thing. When the two first met, he's unsure if the iconic Americana singer saluted him with his trademark, gravelly "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."

It was back in 1999, in Cash's hometown of Hendersonville, Tenn. Mangold and his wife/producer Cathy Konrad were coming to talk about making a biopic on Cash and his wife, June Carter. The film opened Friday, two years after the deaths of Carter and Cash.

"I remember John picked us up at the Holiday Inn in his diesel Mercedes and came right on into the lobby in his Ugg boots and said hello," Mangold says. "My wife remembers it as, 'Hello, I'm Johnny Cash,' but I remember it as, 'You must be Cathy; you must be Jim."'

As a result of that difference in recollections, Mangold now second-guesses himself on this.

The dark-haired, trim-bearded Mangold, 41, laughs about this confusion. He's dressed in jeans and a red-striped long-sleeve shirt, relaxing before his film opens the American Film Institute Film Festival later in the day.

He knows he should be sure about something so important to him - and to Cash. After all, his movie makes a point of showing how Cash's signature salutation derived from his days in mid-1950s Memphis as a door-to-door salesman, when he was still struggling to break into the music business. "I'd ask him, 'John, what would you say when you came to people's doors,"' Mangold says. "He'd say, 'Hello, I'm John Cash and I'm here to sell ...' and I'd go, 'My God, you'd say, 'Hello, I'm John Cash a hundred times a day."'

Mangold grew up in New York City and upstate New York as the son of internationally recognized abstract painter Robert Mangold. His world was an artistic and intellectual one, but it turns out Dad was also a Cash fan.

"I discovered Johnny Cash through my dad's record collection," Mangold recalls. "My dad really didn't have that many records, but one was 'At Folsom Prison.' I don't know how old I was, I could have been 6 or 10, but I remember being fascinated by the music and the image on that cover.

"As a kid, the idea of a man singing for a bunch of convicts and hearing them all cheering on record is really gripping."

Director's dream project

The director has slowly moved up from indies like "Heavy" to Hollywood thrillers like "Identity." Along the way, he gained enough clout to begin negotiating for rights to his dream project about Cash. It is based on the singer's two autobiographies. John Carter Cash, his and Carter's son, is an executive producer. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as Carter; the two do their own singing.

It also reveals the tortured and guilt-ridden (but mostly non-sexual) relationship between the already married Cash and twice-divorced Carter from the late 1950s well into the 1960s. Cash already felt guilty about his brother's accidental death when he was a child; she hailed from an iconic country-music family that stood for traditional values. It was easy for them to doubt themselves.

This long, anguished phase of their relationship finally ended when, after Carter helped Cash withdraw from drugs, he got divorced from wife Vivian and married Carter in 1968. Well before that, Carter was a featured performer on Cash's live shows.

Their duet on "Jackson," in particular, seemed to imply a romantic connection with its sexy "We got married in a fever/hotter than a pepper sprout" opening line. And as early as 1962, Carter had grappled with her feelings for Cash in "Ring of Fire," which she co-wrote with Merle Kilgore.

Cash and Carter kept the painfully intimate aspects of their private lives secret, even in their autobiographies. (At the time, Cash's first wife was still alive.)

As a result, parts of "Walk the Line' may be shocking for those who know the duo only as the American icons they became after their marriage and following the success of Cash's "At Folsom Prison" and "At San Quentin" albums and their popular TV variety show.

Tryst revealed

"In that first meeting with John and June, I addressed it right off," Mangold says. "I said I thought they were going to have to go to some places they hadn't gone in their books."

They agreed, but it still was difficult to get them to confess all the details.

"The breakthrough happened on a visit right before June passed, in March or April of that year," Mangold says. "It was a very wonderful conversation in that John and June both felt the script was missing some of the romance they felt was in their relationship. It was very easy for me to say it's hard to write a romance about people who don't admit there was one. It was very clear to them I had a point.

"It wasn't like I needed them to confess to some huge rendezvous," he says. "It was really just getting them to talk about an acknowledgment of a feeling that each was wrestling with, so I would not be fictionalizing things to be playing with that tension."

Finally, the couple told Mangold how their relationship became sexual during a Las Vegas stint in 1965. That becomes a key scene in the movie. "They always intimated something had happened in Vegas - it wasn't like this was a bomb dropping," Mangold says. "But now it became very clear what happened. There was this physicality between them, and then June was not comfortable.

"Then John started not showing up for shows or came whacked out. In the end, June had to finish up their contract with Roger Miller headlining - her sister was going out with Roger Miller - because John was incapable of finishing. All this stemmed from this intimacy between them that she then realized was a mistake."

Throughout it all, Cash made it clear to Mangold that he didn't think anyone in the film deserved to look bad - except himself. "He didn't want to hurt anyone," Mangold says. "The simple way of him saying that was, 'If someone's going to look bad, make it me, because I was."'

And he does look bad at times in "Walk the Line." (One of Cash's daughters by his first wife, Kathy, recently told The Associated Press in Nashville that the film also is unfair toward her mother, who died this year.)

But Mangold believes that, now that Cash is gone, he looks better than just about any country or pop troubadour of his era. "I think John is one of the great storytellers of our time," he says. "I'm really honored to have known him." 

****

 
CASHBASH 2005 DVD Order is about to be Processed and Sent

Dec 2, 2005

Folks,
Alan and I have received the final draft of the Cash Bash 2005 DVD. I have been reviewing this final edit for the last two days. I think it may give "Walk The Line" a run for the Oscar. It is truly tremendous....and the packaging is as good as it gets! As mentioned, we are trying to make the mailing in time for holiday gift giving (Dec 11). If you would like to be included in this first shipment, please go to the CASHBASH2005.COM website and place your order now. I will be placing the order for this shipment by next Tuesday 12/6. Don't miss the train!

Highlights include:

DVD 1
Setting up at Sun/ Bill Miller Collection presentation/ Sun Studio CASH BASH Jam Session with surprise guests, Bob Wootton and WS Holland.

DVD 2
Rehearsal session/ Pre show auction/ Tennessee Three Show at the New Daisy Theater

DVD 3
Tour of Sun Studios by WS Holland/ CASH BASH authors forum/extensive interview with Patrick Carr of "CASH".

DVD 4
CASH BASH Tommy Cash Tribute Show

DVD 5
"CASH; Photographs by Alan Messer" multimedia video/ presentation by photographer, Alan Messer/ "Far Side Banks of Jordan" video/Sunday CASH BASH closing session

You'll love the DVD's!


Mike
My dad, Johnny Cash

The singing legend's only son writes about the one thing that mattered to his father more than music: family.

By John Carter Cash

USAToday

Issue Date: December 4, 2005

We were best friends. I miss him terribly.

The new film, "Walk the Line," is appropriately titled. Walking the line defined my father until the day he died, Sept. 12, 2003, at age 71.

My dad never got to see the final cut, but he had great faith that Joaquin Phoenix, as both an actor and singer, could pull off playing him. He saw how Sissy Spacek portrayed Loretta Lynn in "Coal Miner's Daughter" in 1980, and he was greatly impressed. To have his own singing voice come out of Joaquin's mouth? That wouldn't feel honest to Dad.

Dad lived in a complex balance. It would tear at our hearts to see him struggle with sadness and personal demons, all the while trying to be the very best father and husband he could be. And he was just as devoted to his music. On the way home from my mother's funeral, just four months before he himself died, Dad told me, "I have to get to the studio." And I understood why: Music was his healer.

Contrary to his brooding image, my dad loved a good laugh. He was big on telling knock-knock jokes and funny stories about his family and friends. Dad would chuckle when he'd tell me how Bob Dylan acted like a silly kid when they first met. He burst into Dad's hotel room and began jumping on the bed, shouting, "I met Johnny Cash! I finally met Johnny Cash!"

He walked the line with his public positions, too. He was welcome in every president's White House, from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. And I was there to meet them all with him. When I was a baby, the White House staff allowed my mother to put me down for a nap while my parents talked with Nixon and first lady Pat. I have seen letters from all of these presidents to my father, each showing their respect and appreciation. Every one of them treated him with admiration.

At the same time, I never heard him publicly endorse or oppose a war, or speak out as an anti-war activist. He supported the troops by performing for them. But I know that, privately, he never supported any war, including the current one. He was a deeply spiritual man. He always thought world leaders should come up with other ideas.

My dad was known as the Man in Black. But he was not always so. He often wore denim shirts or brightly colored cottons at home. He began to wear black out of convenience. My mom used to kid him and say he only wore it because it hid the dirt stains! My father loved to be teased. Laughter was his response to life's pain and struggle.

He was a great deal of fun. I played guitar on stage for him and often acted as a personal assistant. We'd travel the world for adventure. In Alaska and Canada, we would fish for salmon, trout and Northern pike. We went deep-sea fishing in Hawaii, Costa Rica and Australia. We were best friends.

I miss my dad terribly. I can't call him when I need him, but I see Johnny Cash every day. He will live as long as the world is intrigued by his magical ability to walk the line -- between peacemaker and patriot, between country boy and rock 'n' roll icon, between the man of God and the rebel he was. When Dad was asked what he would like to be remembered for, he said he'd like to be remembered as a good father. To his family, this is his greatest gift. And even though his greatest gift to the world may arguably be his music, I believe his faith and perseverance offer just as strong a legacy.

John Carter Cash, 35, is a Grammy Award-winning music producer, and he's an executive producer of "Walk the Line." He lives in Hendersonville, Tenn., with his wife, Laura, and two children, Joseph and Anna Maybelle.

****

Library find worth Cash
Singer's signed novel rescued from $5 bin
Second book turns up to sweeten Owen Sound sale
Dec. 2, 2005. 01:00 AM
ROBERTA AVERY
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

OWEN SOUND—Since the discovery of a Johnny Cash novel signed by the Man in Black himself in a batch of books bound for the library's annual used book sale, chief librarian Judy Armstrong has found herself developing an appreciation for his music.

"From the moment I realized what we had, I started becoming a convert," said Armstrong yesterday as she checked for new bids in her district library's auction of the copy of Man in White.

Earlier this year, a person unknown donated the 1986 novel to the library's annual book sale, which raises money for purchasing new titles. No one noticed it was signed by Cash and by his wife June Carter Cash and the book was placed in a $5 bin.

Then Maggie Murphy, an 18-year-old volunteer and a fan of Cash, noticed the signatures while sorting through the bin.

"She told us we could get a lot more than $5," said Armstrong.

Library officials realized the discovery had perfect timing because Walk the Line, a feature movie about Cash's life, is currently being seen in theatres across North America.

Cash died in 2003, a few months after his wife. A roughneck in his early years, the country star surprised fans and critics alike in 1986 when he published his only novel, based on the conversion of the apostle St. Paul on the road to Damascus.

The Owen Sound library withdrew its copy of Man in White from the sale and library officials began an Internet search. They found copies of the book signed by Cash listed online for between $400 and $600, but they were unable to determine the value with June Carter Cash's signature added.

A copy of Man in White signed by Cash was priced at $421 at http://www.bookfinder.com yesterday.

There have been a lot of accolades for Murphy for "her generosity in turning it in and not buying it for herself," said Armstrong.

The buzz created by the discovery has resulted in the donation back to the library of a copy of June Carter Cash's autobiography From the Heart, also signed by the couple.

"We had sold that one for one dollar," said Armstrong.

In an effort to authenticate the signatures, the library has compared them to those on Johnny Cash memorabilia. They've also learned Cash and his wife attended a book signing at a local bookstore when they appeared in Owen Sound in 1987.

"We believe that's how someone in the city ended up with this book," said Armstrong.

Library officials are certain the signatures are genuine but are using the word "presumably" in the auction listing at http://www.owensound.library.on.ca. The auction closes Monday at 4 p.m.

If the two books get sold for a premium price, Armstrong jokes she may consider playing Cash music in the library lobby.

"But we'll have to raise a great deal of money before I'll do that," she said.

 

****

 
Tour Johnny Cash's Home!

December 1, 2005

Known for his signature hits "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues," singer/songwriter JOHNNY CASH became a legend in his own time, selling over 50 million records. 'Walk the Line,' the movie of his early days starring JOAQUIN PHOENIX and REESE WITHERSPOON (as longtime love JUNE CARTER CASH), is getting rave reviews and garnering Oscar® buzz.

Now, ET has an exclusive tour of the late Johnny and June's house in Hendersonville, TN, where they lived for 35 years. And you can even buy the house, which is selling for $2.5 million!


"Gosh I miss him," says TOMMY CASH, Johnny's brother and real estate agent for Crye-Leike Realtors. "We just hope that somebody who loved Johnny Cash and June Carter, and loved their music and respected the integrity of their life and their music, would buy this house and enjoy it."

Sitting on 4.6 acres on the shore of Old Hickory Lake, the nearly 14,000 square-foot, 18-room home still proudly displays some furniture the couple collected over the years. In the two years since June and Johnny passed away, most antiques and fixtures have been handed down to family members, but several items remain, including their intricately carved mahogany bed. The round lake-view room was their favorite, which Tommy says was always filled with family and friends, and it's where Johnny filmed "Hurt," his last music video.

Over the course of his career, Cash made over 100 albums, sold over 50 million records, won 11 Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and is one of only two performers (next to ELVIS) to be inducted into both the Rock Music and the Country Music Halls of Fame.

Cash nearly lost everything in the mid-'60s when he gave in to the temptations of alcohol and drugs and was kicked out of the Grand Ole Opry. The light at the end of his tunnel was June, his touring partner. They divorced their respective spouses and were married for over 30 years until her death in May of 2003 after heart surgery. In September of the same year, the Man in Black passed away at 71 in a Nashville hospital due to complications from diabetes.

Watch ET for more on Johnny and June's house.

Click here for more real estate info: Crye-Leike Realtors.

****
Johnny Cash's journey to the other side
Nicholas Kulish

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2005
NEW YORK Johnny Cash wasn't nearly as handsome as Elvis. His singing voice, while deep and rich, had a tendency to wander off-key. He was the first to admit that he knew very few guitar chords. If performers could be weighed and measured like prizefighters, Cash might have left the oddsmakers in stitches.

Yet there is a power and honesty to his music that few recording artists can match. In his most affecting songs, the gravelly, toxic rumble you hear is Johnny Cash locking horns with his dark side. It's one man's fight for his own soul, a timeless struggle to a rockabilly beat.

Just over two years after Cash's death at age 71, the American music legend has returned for an encore in "Walk the Line," a film named for one of his signature songs. While the movie revolves mainly around his tangled, forbidden courtship with his eventual second wife, June Carter, it opens at Folsom Prison in California. Inside the penitentiary's walls in 1968 Johnny Cash recorded the live album that for many fans defines the macabre Man in Black, his band's railroad rhythm churning behind him as he sings, "I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die."

High on amphetamines, this self-proclaimed pioneer of hotel vandalism once took an ax and chopped a brand-new door through the wall of his room. In the second of his two autobiographies, "Cash," he wrote that he dwelt on "the literal meaning of 'hell-bent."'

If all Johnny Cash brought to the stage were his demons, we wouldn't need to remember him. Cash's drug addiction and light brushes with the law pale beside the rapper 50 Cent's drug deals and bullet scars.

It is the angel on Johnny Cash's other shoulder that gives his music its depth and profundity. That same murderer in "Folsom Prison Blues" is penitent, singing: "Well, I know I had it coming. I know I can't be free." Cash himself summed it up that he was "trying, despite my many faults and my continuing attraction to all seven deadly sins, to treat my fellow man as Christ would." Johnny Cash merges our seemingly contradictory American traditions of outlaws prone to wild gunplay and pious Christians singing hymns, without stopping to explain how you can be both at once.


Cash had a huge hit with the Shel Silverstein-penned "Boy Named Sue," about the roughest, toughest brawler ever to have a woman's name. The movie shows him singing "Cocaine Blues" to the rowdy crowd of inmates at Folsom, but not the jocular "Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog" or "Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart," which were part of the original concert.

Cash's empathy for those prisoners grew from his own deep wells of guilt. His concert at Folsom was no simple publicity stunt. Cash and his band had been playing shows at prisons for more than a decade before they recorded the hit album at Folsom and followed it up with one from San Quentin Prison. Johnny Cash was a deeply flawed Christian man who could look at criminals and see a part of himself in them.

In a world increasingly reduced to good and evil, to us versus them, Johnny Cash was a man unafraid to admit that he was both. We've somehow lost sight of the truth that there can be no redemption without sin. It's this kind of reductive thinking that makes it easy to reduce swaths of America to color codes and political parties; to lock millions away in jails and prisons, then toss the keys without guilt.

Johnny Cash sang that he wore black "for the poor and beaten down, livin' on the hopeless, hungry side of town." With hundreds of thousands displaced by Hurricane Katrina and 2.1 million people in prisons and jails across the country, we Americans still need him.

Cash's life was an American story that can never be repeated, one that began in the Depression-era cotton fields of Arkansas and continued through an auto assembly line in Michigan to occupied Germany with the U.S. Air Force. He then joined legends of rock 'n' roll like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun and on the road. He stayed with us until the end, touring as long as he could and recording almost until his death. "The way we did it was honest," he wrote. "We played it and sang it the way we felt it, and there's a whole lot to be said for that."

****

 

Roger Ebert's Movie Review:
Walk the Line

Johnny Cash sang like he meant business. He didn't get fancy and he didn't send his voice on missions it could not complete, but there was an urgency in his best songs that pounded them home. When he sang something, it stayed sung. James Mangold's "Walk the Line," with its dead-on performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, helps you understand that quality. Here was a man whose hard-drinking father blamed him for the death of his older brother, said God "took the wrong son," and looked at Johnny's big new house and all he could say was, "Jack Benny's is bigger." In the movie, you sense that the drive behind a Johnny Cash song was defiance. He was going to sing it no matter what anybody thought -- especially his old man.

The movie shows John R. Cash inventing himself. He came from a hard-working Arkansas family, and grew up listening to country music on the radio, especially the Carter Family. He wrote his first song while he was serving in the Air Force in Germany . When he came back to the states, he got married and got a regular job, but dreamed about being a recording artist. When his first wife, Vivian, complained he was spending more time on music than on her, he referred to his "band" and she said, "Your band is two mechanics who can't even hardly play."

She was just about right. When they finally got the legendary Sam Phillips (Dallas Roberts) of Sun Records in Memphis to let them audition, they sounded like carbon copies of third-rate radio gospel singers. Sam should have shown them the door. Out of kindness, he asked John if he had anything of his own he wanted to play. Cash chose a song he wrote in Germany , "Folsom Prison Blues." One of the key passages in Phoenix 's performance comes as Cash learns, while in the process of singing this song, how he should sound and who he should be. You can hear his musicians picking up the tempo to keep pace with him. He starts the song as a loser and ends as Johnny Cash.

"Walk the Line" follows the story arc of many other musical biopics, maybe because many careers are the same: hard times, obscurity, success, stardom, too much money, romantic adventures, drugs or booze, and then (if they survive) beating the addiction, finding love and reaching a more lasting stardom. That more or less describes last year's "Ray," but every time we see this story the characters change and so does the music, and that makes it new.

What adds boundless energy to "Walk the Line" is the performance by Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash. We're told in the movie that June learned to be funny onstage because she didn't think she had a good voice; by the time John meets her she's been a pro since the age of 4, and effortlessly moves back and forth between her goofy onstage persona and her real personality, which is sane and thoughtful, despite her knack for hitching up with the wrong men. Johnny Cash, for that matter, seems like the wrong man, and she holds him at arm's length for years -- first because he's a married man, and later because he has a problem with booze and pills.

The film's most harrowing scene shows Johnny onstage after an overdose, his face distorted by pain and anger, looking almost satanic before he collapses. What is most fearsome is not even his collapse, but the force of his will, which makes him try to perform when he is clearly unable to. You would not want to get in the way of that determination. When Cash is finally busted and spends some time in jail, his father is dependably laconic: "Now you won't have to work so hard to make people think you been to jail."

Although Cash's father (played with merciless aim by Robert Patrick) eventually does sober up, the family that saves him is June's. The Carter Family were country royalty ever since the days when their broadcasts came from a high-powered pirate station across the river from Del Rio , Texas . When they take a chance on Cash, they all take the chance; watch her parents as they greet Johnny's favorite pill-pusher.

It is by now well known that Phoenix and Witherspoon perform their own vocals in the movie. It was not well known when the movie previewed -- at least not by me. Knowing Cash's albums more or less by heart, I closed my eyes to focus on the sound track and decided that, yes, that was the voice of Johnny Cash I was listening to. The closing credits make it clear it's Joaquin Phoenix doing the singing, and I was gob-smacked. Phoenix and Mangold can talk all they want about how it was as much a matter of getting in character, of delivering the songs, as it was a matter of voice technique, but whatever it was, it worked. Cash's voice was "steady like a train, sharp like a razor," said June.

The movie fudges some on the facts. Johnny didn't actually propose marriage to June on stage, but I'm glad he does in the movie. Other scenes are compressed or fictionalized, as they must be, and I would have liked more screen time for the other outlaws, including Waylon and Willie. Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis make brief excursions through the plot, but essentially, this is the story of John and June and a lot of great music. And essentially, that's the story we want.

Rating: 3 and a Half Stars (out of 4) 

****
Kampsen recalls time he sang with Johnny Cash

by Harry Hanson Staff writer

Tuesday, November 29, 2005


herald photo by harry hanson Herman Kampsen holds framed photos and memorabilia from Johnny Cash’s visit to Cornstock Fest in 1989.

Elrosa--After famed country singer Johnny Cash died in 2003, his life was already legendary. So much so that biographers have written his life story and even have made it into a “4-star, 2-thumbs up” film, “I Walk the Line.”

The movie is currently showing at Main Street Theatre in Sauk Centre.

Elrosa’s Herman Kampsen is one person who may say he sang a duet with Cash, something very few, other than June Carter, could put in their resumes. Cash would become the first of many country singers to grace the stage at the Cornstock Fest in Regal, Minn. near Paynesville. It was on that stage Kampsen performed with his idol

Originally named the “Regal Music Fest,” Cash quickly put his stamp on the event by suggesting it should be called “The Cornstock Fest” to the 5,000-plus in the audience that night of Aug. 18, 1989.

Cash, Carter and their entourage came to Regal in two buses preceded by a helicopter full of media people, arriving at 5:30 for the 7 to 10 p.m. concert. There was time for them to meet the Kampsen family and friends before “show time.”

During the free time introductions, Herman was introduced to Cash by his son Mike who was the sponsor of the event.

At Mike’s request, Herman was to sing one solo and one duet with Cash. When asked by Cash to choose the song for the duet, Herman chose Mean-eyed Cat, the first tune the venerable artist had published. Unfortunately, Cash could no longer recall the lyrics to the song mentioned so that alternative had to be dropped. So, Mean-eyed Cat became Kampsen’s single. Cash then asked what Herman would like to do for the duet.

“I suggested Folsom Prison Blues which he (Cash) nixed as being “too personal” to him, a song he always sang solo.” That is when Herman suggested I Walk the Line which both agreed upon.

Called to the stage midway through the performance, Herman hurried, tripping over a wire and fell to his knees which brought the house down in laughter. Following their singing of I Walk the Line, Herman again hurried from the stage, vanishing back into the audience.

“In my mind, the audience had paid $20 to see Johnny Cash, not me, but I was later told that June Carter was coming across the stage to shake my hand, but I was gone,” he recalled.

Many other major country music artists have since appeared at Cornstock Fest. Included on this list were nationally noted names such as Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Weyland Jennings and Charlie Pride.

Kampsen still singing

after 45 years on stage

Kampsen, who has been singing Country Classic music for 45 years, has always thought of Johnny Cash as his true idol. He can sing 15 of Cash’s 100-plus songs, knowing all verses of each.

“Cash has had more than a hundred songs published, but many are just talking songs such as A Boy Named Sue. That one was too difficult for me to add to my collection in doing his songs.

Kampsen has other country singers he emulates in a like manner. “It just seems natural to use much the same inflections of true artists while learning their songs,” said Kampsen.

Kampsen, who has read Cash’s autobiography and more recently saw the film remembers this quote by Cash: “I may have grown up poor, but my fans have made me rich.” Regal’s Cornstock Fest helped in a small way to add to the Johnny Cash and June Carter charm.

Meanwhile, Kampsen at 82, is still vocalizing on Classical Country music with the Olmscheid Band of St. Martin, playing and singing at church festivals, anniversary celebrations, Elrosa and Belgrade Days, the Stearns Co. Fair, and some pubs.

“In this part of the country waltzes, polkas, and two-steps are still king, but there is always room for country singers in the mold of Johnny Cash,” noted Kampsen.

 

****

 
Rare Johnny Cash photos on exhibit

The Charlotte Observer
Posted on Sun, Nov. 27, 2005


"Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, 2003" a show of photographs of Cash's final public appearances, will be at the Evening Muse Coffeehouse and Gallery, Friday through December. The photos, taken by Daniel Coston of Charlotte, will be on view during Gallery Crawl from 6 to 11 p.m. Friday. Coston says the photos document Cash's few public appearances after wife June Carter Cash died, and cover his two final shows at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Va. Some photos have never been published or displayed.

 

****
Cash daughter sees shades of her father in Phoenix's eyes

KATHY HANRAHAN
Posted on Sun, Nov. 27, 2005

Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. - Cindy Cash did a double-take the first time she saw actor Joaquin Phoenix in a commercial for the new film "Walk the Line," a biopic of her famous father's rise to success, struggle with drug addiction and love affair with the woman who became his second wife, June Carter Cash.

"'Here, here Joaquin,'" she said she told herself. "Not many people can fool me."

Cindy Cash, one of Johnny Cash's four daughters with first wife Vivian Liberto Distin, can't bring herself to see the film. Both of her parents died in recent years - her mother in May from pneumonia and father from complications from diabetes in September 2003.

Cindy Cash, a 47-year-old antiques dealer who lives in Canton, Miss., said the memories are still too real for her. She said it would be difficult watching someone portray a man she recalls as wise and quite humorous, although she admires Joaquin Phoenix and believes he was meant to play the role.

The film also stars actress Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash.

"If anybody could pull it off, Joaquin could, and I hear Reese pulled it off too, which probably wasn't easy for either of them," Cindy Cash told The Associated Press during a telephone interview from Canton, Miss.

Besides physical similarities, Cindy Cash said her father and Phoenix share another bond.

"The death of his brother and the death of my dad's brother were two just pivotal moments in both their lives," she said.

Johnny Cash was 12 when his 14-year-old brother, Jack, died in a wood cutting accident in Arkansas in 1944. Phoenix's older brother, actor River Phoenix, died of a drug overdose in Hollywood in 1993.

Though her half brother John Carter - the son of Johnny and June Carter Cash - is an executive producer of "Walk the Line," Cindy Cash said she had no involvement in the film. She said she was sent a script to review before filming began.

"I was going through such a grieving process that I still to this day have not opened it," Cindy Cash said. "I just have to trust that nobody is going to make my mom look bad, and my dad had such an amazing career, how can they make him look bad?"

She insists that the family is closer than ever, though her half brother's perspective is different perspective than hers.

"To him, this movie is his parents' love story. To me it's the breakup of my parents' marriage," she said. "And that's OK."

Cindy Cash said her mother shielded the children from the pain of the divorce, telling them they would see their father "just as much but his clothes wouldn't be there anymore." The arrangement worked fine for 9-year-old Cindy. She would spend the summers in Nashville with her father and attend school in Ventura, Calif., where her mother lived.

Cindy Cash said the children also developed a healthy relationship with her father's second wife June Carter Cash, which lasted until her stepmother died in May 2003.

"She was the easiest person in the world to get along with," Cindy Cash said. "She never, ever raised her voice or spoke ugly about people."

At 19, Cindy Cash joined her father on the road and for five years sang during his shows.

The bond between father and daughter remained strong. After nearly two months of marriage to Eddie Panetto, Cindy Cash went to Nashville to care for her ailing father at his home for three months. Johnny Cash died at age 71.

"It's just too painful to think of him old right now because that is when I saw him suffer," she said.

For that reason, Cash cannot watch one of her father's last music videos, the cover of the Nine Inch Nails video "Hurt."

Behind his piercing eyes and brooding expression, Cindy Cash said her father wasn't always deep in thought. Johnny told his daughter, "sometimes I might just be wondering if it is going to rain."

"He was very intimidating and mysterious ... and dark, but I came to learn that there was definitely nothing to be afraid of," Cindy Cash said.

Though her father did not talk much, when he did, Cindy Cash said it was something worth listening to.

Friends say Cindy Cash inherited storytelling skills from her father.

"From all the books and accounts I have read on the life of Johnny Cash, Cindy is so much like her dad," said friend Linda Bynum. "Not only is she beautiful on the inside as well as the outside, like her dad she is a natural born storyteller who through her own music and poetry can put things into context."

Bynum, executive director of the Ridgeland Chamber of Commerce, became friends after asking Cash to speak at the organization's "Denim & Diamonds" event earlier this year.

"You could have heard a pin drop as Cindy lovingly talked about the many sides of her famous dad," she said.

With Oscar buzz surrounding the film, Cash said she may eventually attempt to sit through the movie.

"Who knows?" she said. "Maybe my husband will hold my hand and we'll wait until it comes out on video then we'll watch it in the privacy of my living room."

 

*****
Interview : Reese Witherspoon
Posted by Clint Morris on November 22, 2005

Reese Witherspoon may indeed be one of Hollywood' golden girls but fans of the actress will get to see a different side to her holding her own opposite Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in 'Walk the Line'. Shrugging off Oscar talk for her sassy and emotionally truthful portrayal of Rosalind Carter, Witherspoon is as gracious and charming as always, politely chatting with the press while remaining cautiously aloof. Witherspoon talked to PAUL FISCHER.

Q: Did you feel like you and Joaquin went on this journey together. He was talking about once he signed on there was this moment of utter terror. Did you feel like you were in that together?

Absolutely. At first it kind of felt like lost and set adrift… First of all I didn’t know I was singing. I signed up to do the acting bit. That would have been in a completely different contract. He and I went into that with a lot of trepidation. Particularly him. He was playing an icon that had such a recognizable voice. And me, I am just a perfectionist and totally afraid of stinking. [laughs] So we went into it and I was just determined to get the right coaches and the right people.

Q: So at which point did you feel you reached a comfort zone that you could do the acting and the singing?

The singing part was easier for me than the autoharp part. Playing the instrument was really difficult for me. I had never played an instrument. I don’t know how that even happens to people. Also, recording the album… You think you are a good singer when you are in the car. You can sing along. But then when you go in and you actually sing into a microphone for 4 hours straight…

Q: Do you sing in the shower?

No. I sing really loud in the car. And I am really good.

Q: Over music?

Yes. Along with… really. I accompany Lucinda Williams, Alison Krause beautifully.

Q: You think you’re good, put what about the other people in the car?

My kids tell me to turn it off all the time. The other day they sent me a CD of songs (from the movie) to check something out and Deacon put his fingers in his ears and said “I hate this song! Turn it off!” It was me singing! But all the practice and rehearsal really helps boost your confidence.

Q: There is a scene in the movie where you are accosted in the grocery store. You really got from that scene that June Carter displayed this incredible grace in the face of fame. Obviously you relate to that…

I think the really remarkable thing about her character is that she did all of these things that we sort of see as normal things in the 1950s when it wasn’t really acceptable for a woman to be married and divorced twice and have two different children by two different husbands and travel around in a car full of very famous musicians all by herself. She didn’t try to comply social convention, so I think that makes her a very modern woman. Really a woman who set a pace for someone like myself and created opportunities for someone like myself to be a working mother and be an artist. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to be her.

Q: You do seem to handle yourself very well. Where does that come from?

Basically I know my grandmother would be mortified if I did anything less. I grew up with a lot of emphasis on how to carry yourself. I don’t know. You just kind of are who you are in life. Don’t you think?

Q: Do you look at this as movie about music or is it really at the heart of it just a great love story?

I think there are a lot of different stories going on. Johnny Cash’s story of struggle and overcoming his impoverished background and different challenges. His drug challenged. Addiction. I think that is really remarkable. I think everyone really likes a story where you see a guy go from nothing – or a girl – and accomplish things we don’t feel capable of doing ourselves. But also the love story thing… I really like in this film that it is realistic and portrays sort of a real marriage, a real relationship where there are forbidden thoughts and fallibility. And it is about compassion in the long haul. Not just the short easy solutions to problems.

Q: You didn’t meet with June personally, but you did meet with her children. Was there one thing they wanted you to bring out about her?

Well I was informed upon meeting one of them that my boobs weren’t big enough. So I ran immediately to the costume designer and was like “I don’t think my boobs are big enough!” He said “I think we’ll be okay” But as far as accuracy, I think we are a little off there. But they just talked a lot about her personality and how she could just as easily have dinner with the man who pumped gas at the gas station as she could with the Queen. She was an amazing sort of person to be so open minded about humanity.

Q: Do you think perceptions of you will change because of this movie? How do you feel about that?

I just feel lucky to work. I feel like I am in such a rare position that I have gotten to get this far in this business as a woman and that I still am presented with challenging roles with great writers and great directors and great co-stars. These roles come along so infrequently. My husband and I talk about it all the time. Maybe every five years you get to see a role that really you are never gonna read anything like it again ever in your life. So you just have to keep looking for that and hoping it comes your way. You’ve got one role and 25 actresses that want it, you know…

Q: You just signed for something else…

There is a movie I am working on for Paramount called The Reckoning about a New York Times photojournalist that goes to Cambodia to look for MIA soldiers from the Vietnam war.

Q: Back to that sequence where you get tangled up with Johnny… You stop and look at him… In your mind was that the moment where she knew that one day they would be together. Because it said so much…

It’s interesting because that moment, the scene that is in the film, that moment, he said to her the night he met her, he said, “One day I am going to marry you.” She said, “Oh, you’re funny.” I don’t think that was the moment… I love the moment in the movie where her mother says “I can’t go down there. I am already down there.” Jim and I really worked on that a lot because one of the biggest struggles for me was “when did she acquiesce? When does she finally get it. And I love that her mother finally imparts that wisdom on her.

Q: Did growing up in Nashville give you a leg up on your knowledge of the culture…?

I think it absolutely gave me an advantage. I think I understand the history of country music because I grew up in Nashville and we had to study it in school. The entire 4th grade play was the history of country music. The Carter family was in it and I played Mama maybelle. So I knew a lot about Appalachian folk music and bluegrass and the history and the roots of it. But I think more than that I was very lucky to be southern. That’s something to me that is a cultural thing. Anywhere you are from. But particularly the south has a very strong sense of family and community and taking care of others. That is just a personality trait you can’t sort of fake. It’s hard to do Southern.

Q: Do you think you have mellowed over the years?

Yeah. I have a cold. I would normally be bouncing off the walls. I think motherhood…

Q: Changed you? Slowed you down?

Not slowed me down. I just have lots of things diverting my attention. Children. Running around.

Q: Did people’s perception of you change by you becoming a mother?

I don’t know. It is hard to say how you are perceived by others.

Q: What happens to actresses when they become moms? Do some doors open and others shut?

I don’t know. I know as far as people who see the films, I have many more people coming up to me now saying ‘I relate to you’ or ‘I relate to your struggle to be a woman and work and have children.’ I think that is a very common thing that happens in people’s lives. And I get a lot of respect from men.

Q: Why?

I don’t know. A lot of men say I really respect what you’re doing.

Q: Would you like to do music on the road? A tour?

No. I would like to do another movie with music in it. A musical would be fun.

Q: I read you had a little bit of stage fright…

A little bit? They literally had to push me to get me up there on the stage and say “You have to do this. It is time. We are all waiting for you.” I thought I was going to throw up the whole first day. It was awful.

Q: How did you get over it?

Really, it helped watching Joaquin. For all the ducking and bowing that we did during the rehearsal process, the moment that he had to step on stage and be in the clothes and be Johnny Cash, he just had this incredible confidence. And he didn’t break. And he wasn’t nervous or insecure. Maybe he was on the inside, but for what I saw, he really inspired me.

Q: You once wanted to be a doctor. Are you shocked where you ended up?

Every day. I can’t believe this is what I do.

Q: What happened?

I don’t know. I think I had the compassion element and I had the empathy element. But I didn’t have the tolerating the blood and the squeamishness thing.

Q: Is there another real life person you would like to take on? A role?

I love country singers. I don’t know.

Q: How’s Ryan doing?

Great. He just finished Clint Eastwood movie The Last of Our Fathers.

Q: Anything fun planned for the holidays?

We are going to be working around Ryan’s schedule.

Q: You still doing the one person works, one person stays home thing?

It actually works out very well. I am luck I have had a whole year off…

Q: Are you going to be shooting in Vietnam?

I don’t know. We are trying to get it going now. I have no idea about the logistics yet.

Q: Do you want your kids to be actors?

I want them to be whatever they want to be. When they are 18.

Q: When you were starting out, did you think this was something you would still be doing today?

No. When I went to Stanford when I was 19, I was fully expecting to just be pre med, really. I didn’t think I would get this far.

Q: Do you have a favorite June Carter Cash song?

One of the songs that is not in the movie that I like is Long Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man. I think they have a great relationship on that song. It used to be at the end of the movie. I don’t know if it is anymore.

Q: Is there a soundtrack?

Yes. I have an album out. And I brag about it.

Q: Do you sing in the car [inaudible]

Truthfully I haven’t listened to any of the music. I couldn’t listen to a Johnny Cash song or a June Carter song. Probably for about a year I couldn’t listen to any of it. Finally I am slowly letting people… if it comes up on the iPod I am like, “Ok, you don’t have to turn it off…” We just listened to it so much. It became very personal.

Q: Apart from The Reckoning, do you have anything else coming up?

I am producing a film for my company called Penelope that Christina Ricci and Hayden Christiansen are going to star in. I am going to do a role in that. That is going to be next year. It is a fairy tale about a girl who has a curse in her family. She has a pig face.

Q: Christina Ricci has a pig face?

Yes. It is sort of a family curse and in order to get the curse off her family, she has to go through this process.

Q: Who do you play?

I play her quirky best friend.

Q: Potential for awards?

Obviously you make films so people can see them and enjoy them. Everything about that (awards) is just luck. You know? I feel really happy and very blessed to be in this position to have this job and this opportunity. I hope a lot for Jim and Joaquin. I think they really put their heart and soul into this movie. I have never seen two people so dedicated to a project. So it is nice to see p