December 5: Johnny Cash played MSG, New York City in 1969

Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden is an album by Johnny Cash that was recorded in December 1969 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, but which was not released until 2002 (making it his 86th album overall).

The album was recorded just 4 months after Cash’s seminal At San Quentin was released, which is probably why it was not released soon after its recording. As with all Cash live shows of this period, he was backed up by the Tennessee Three, which consisted of W.S. Holland, Marshall Grant and Bob Wooton. After the first 11 songs, Johnny Cash took a short break and the guests stepped up to the plate with their current hits. As if Johnny wasn’t enough, we get Carl Perkins and The Statler Brothers in tremendous form. The Carter Family was a standard part of the Johnny Cash Show, and it is a real treat hearing Mother Maybelle with her daughters. They also performs back up vocals on many of the songs.

As with most Cash shows, the genres covered ran the gamut from country music to rockabilly to even some folk rock. Similarly to “Johnny Cash At San Quentin”, Johnny Cash at Madison Square Garden includes numbers performed by Perkins, the Statlers and the Carters while Johnny was offstage.

It is an absolute must have for any Johnny Cash fan! I still wonder why Sony took 33 years to release this gem.

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The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash (Official Documentary)

“Redemption,” observes an off-camera Springsteen. “For Johnny, that was an enormous part of his whole career.” With “The Gift,” Cash’s 71-year reckoning with the wages of sin and salvation is put in eloquently humbling, myth-busting perspective.
– Los Angeles Times

YouTube Originals presents The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash stands among the giants of 20th century American life. But his story remains tangled in mystery and myth. This documentary, created with the full cooperation of the Cash estate and rich in recently discovered archival materials, brings Cash the man out from behind the legend.

Taking the remarkable Folsom Prison recording as a central motif and featuring interviews with family and celebrated collaborators, the film explores the artistic victories, the personal tragedies, the struggles with addiction, and the spiritual pursuits that colored Johnny Cash’s life.

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October 24: Bob Dylan – 10 great live versions of “One Too Many Mornings”

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The song ultimately benefited from two of the man’s best electric arrangements, on the highly charged 1966 and 1976 tours. On the latter tour it also acquired a brand-new coda that suggested faults on both sides: ‘You’ve no right to be here / And I’ve no right to stay / Until we’re both one too many mornings / And a thousand miles away.’ Its inclusion in the set, at a time when Dylan had reached much the same point in his relationship with wife Sara as he’d reached with Suze in October 1963, suggests its return to favour was no coincidence. Subsequent performances, which have tended to be (semi-)acoustic, suggest it is a song Dylan can plug his inspired self into at will, as anyone who caught performances at New York’s Beacon Theatre in October 1990, or at the second Supper Club show in 1993, can readily testify.
– Clinton Heylin – Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957-1973[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Recorded October 24, 1963 @ Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios, New York City, and released on his third studio album The Times They Are a-Changin’  January 13, 1964.

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October 11: Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar was released in 1957

“The first Sun Records artist to release an LP and what a debut it was. An instant pop up country star to go. The song-writing is mature already and they’re delivered with an infectious warmth in the vocal. A compelling listen and full of instant career standards like “I Walk The Line”, “Cry Cry Cry” and “Folsom Prison Blues”.”
– The Jukebox Rebel

Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! is the debut album by Johnny Cash, released on October 11 (wikipedia says October 14, but other sources says October 11), 1957. The album contained four of his hit singles: “I Walk the Line,” “Cry! Cry! Cry!,” “So Doggone Lonesome,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.” It was re-issued on July 23, 2002 as an expanded edition, under the label Varese Vintage, containing five bonus tracks, three being alternate versions of tracks already present on the original LP.

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Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and more cover Leonard Cohen (born September 21, 1934)

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When things get really bad, you just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig, and that’s all you can do
– Leonard Cohen

“He (Bob Dylan) said, ‘I like this song you wrote called Hallelujah.’ In fact, he started doing it in concert. He said, ‘How long did that take you to write?’ And I said, ‘Oh, the best part of two years.’ He said, ‘Two years?’ Kinda shocked. And then we started talking about a song of his called I And I from Infidels. I said, ‘How long did you take to write that.’ He said, ‘Ohh, 15 minutes.’ I almost fell off my chair. Bob just laughed.”
~Leonard Cohen (quoted in Telegraph 41, p. 30)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Leonard Norman Cohen (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet, and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and romantic relationships. Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour.

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Bob Dylan Sings Johnny Cash

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]I like Johnny Cash a lot. I like everything he does really.
-Bob Dylan (Autumn 1965 – Nat Hentoff (The Playboy) Interview)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

John R. “Johnny” Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of being inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”].. Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by him – the greatest of the greats then and now. I first met him in ‘62 or ‘63 and saw him a lot in those years. Not so much recently, but in some kind of way he was with me more than people I see every day.
~Bob Dylan (Statement on Johnny Cash – Sept 2003)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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