Live Fast, Die Young

by Chris Price

  But not without leaving a small gift to remember him by. Over the course of several visits, a thin, shiny layer of hair lacquer would accumulate on the back of the armchair, which combined with the alcoholic sweat to create a musty odour capable of outlasting several hot washes. Each time I sat in that chair to eat my crumpets and watch The Dukes of Hazzard, scenes of law breakin', bonnet slidin' and car chasin' became ever more intimately associated in my mind with the whiff of granddad, the twang of banjo and the saw of fiddle.

  I'm convinced I have The Dukes of Hazzard – specifically Daisy Duke, if I'm absolutely honest – to thank for my love of outlaw country. Waylon Jennings narrated the show and sang the theme tune ('The Good Ol' Boys', which told of modern day Robin Hoods out to straighten curves and flatten hills while evadin' the law in the General Lee). The combination of fast cars, exhilarating stunts and Catherine Bach in denim hot pants was impossible to resist. To this day I can sing every word of the theme tune and even now found myself fighting an impulse to slide across the bonnet of the Grievous Angel every time Joe and I switched driving duty.

  I had no idea who Waylon Jennings was back then, and didn't find out until well into my twenties; liking country music as a teenager was as likely to attract the girls as a bout of halitosis. But later I learned from classroom music mentors – and they're running record labels now, so they must be right, right? – that it was fine to like country as long as it wasn't Garth Brooks or Billy Ray Cyrus. There was a band of men – Waylon, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson and later Gram among them – being called 'outlaw country', and that sounded fine by me.

  But Waylon's Nashville flatmate and partner in crime was the greatest outlaw of them all: Johnny Cash. Johnny's hell raisin' – part real life, part carefully cultivated image (drink, drugs and starting forest fires, yes, prison never) – meant he always had an uneasy relationship with the cosy Nashville establishment. At opposite ends of his career he received both a ban from the Grand Ole Opry and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, like a stubborn, greasy stain on the back of the Nashville armchair which people eventually came to love. By the time I woke up to him, which wasn't until his reinvention by Rubin as hip, countercultural icon, he was an old man. I have a constant, lingering regret that we didn't have a chance to get better acquainted while he was still alive.

  In 1994 Johnny Cash performed at the Glastonbury Festival in what is regularly cited as one of the greatest performances the festival had ever seen. His features were starting to swell and sag as his years of amphetamine use took their toll. In his regulation black he was, even on television, utterly compelling, and if I were granted one wish by the musical genie and allowed to travel in time to see just one performance, it would be that one.

  He played classics 'Ring of Fire' and 'Folsom Prison Blues'; he played the greatest comedy song ever written, 'A Boy Named Sue', and a handful of newer songs from his latest album. The next day I went to Parrot Records in Canterbury and bought a copy, entitled American Recordings. Along with subsequent albums Unchained, Solitary Man, The Man Comes Around and A Hundred Highways, it rounds off a canon of albums which are the greatest last act in rock and roll history. They are a triumph of performance, production and song, but most of all they are recordings of soul – and Cash Cabin is not only where it happened, but what made it possible.

  Jack had told us to meet him at a gas station on a road leading north out of Nashville towards Hendersonville, the location of the Cash estate. Being as the main road to Hendersonville is called Johnny Cash Parkway, there seems little point in being secretive here. A crisp moon hovered in the graphite-black night sky above the gas station. Jack was already there. We drew up alongside as he wound down the window of his small, battered hatchback.

  'Follow me.'

  With a throaty cough from his exhaust, he eased off. After half a mile we turned into a small residential street lined with squat, newly-built houses like the treeless suburbs of Edward Scissorhands. After another few minutes the road dead-ended at a cul-de-sac in front of two enormous, black, wrought-iron gates.

  Jack buzzed the intercom. Nothing. Chris and I looked at each other. Maybe this wasn't going to happen after all. In fact, hadn't it been ridiculous to imagine even for a second that it would? Who was this guy we were tailing, and where was he taking us?

  He buzzed again. Still nothing. Maybe he was a fantasist or obsessive or con artist or murderer. Perhaps our names were about to be added to a list of recent 'disappearances' in the area. Nashville police would find two dismembered heads in the Hendersonville countryside and wonder why two apparently respectable, otherwise judicious English professionals would grow bad facial hair, meet a large, scary man in a Nashville Waffle House and freely follow him to the scene of their own horrific demise.

  A third buzz, then Jack's thumb appeared out of the car window and the gates opened to reveal a narrow tarmac drive leading away with broad sweeps of grass on either side. Veering right, we made out a huge, floodlit castle of a home on the passenger side. That, presumably, would be the Cash family home and Jack, then, was not a serial killer. Double thumbs.

  The headlights flashed through tall, densely-packed trees as the road wound through the estate. The house disappeared over our shoulders to the right as we continued into the blackness down a shallow slope. Jack stopped. We were there – wherever there was. We stepped out into stillness and listened to the sounds of the woods all around: the rustle and flutter of wildlife in the nearby nature reserve, the bray of deer, the hoot of owls.

  Somewhere off to the left was the faint orange glow of lights behind curtains, which we presumed to be the cabin. Looking back up the hill, we could see the mega-home of the Cash Family, gothic and imposing.

  We waited for a few minutes, then Jack made a call on his mobile phone – to check where John was. Maybe this wasn't going to happen after all.

  Jack snapped his phone shut. 'He says he's not feeling too good.'

  Shit.

  'But he's putting the kids to bed and then he'll drive down.'

  'Ace,' I said.

  Somewhere in the woods a deer brayed. Up at the house a pair of headlights flicked on. They floated towards us, and a few moments later a silver Mercedes crackled to a halt on the gravel in front of us. Out stepped a sturdily-built man wearing a beaten-up cap and a mustard-coloured corduroy shirt.

  'Hey Jack,' he said.

  'Hey John. I'd like you to meet Chris and Joe.'

  'Hey guys,' said John with a wave of his right hand. With the other he held a handkerchief to his nose. 'Excuse me. I got a real bad cold.'

  'Pleased to meet you,' we replied in unison, and both tried to shake his hand at once.

  'You too. You wanna see the cabin?'

  'Very much so,' I said, 'very much so indeed.'

  Johnny and June built the Cash Cabin in 1978 as a place to get away from it all whilst remaining within the grounds of their 240-acre Hendersonville estate. Big and solid, a little larger than the average terraced house, it was modelled on the home in Poor Valley, Virginia (seriously) in which June Carter was raised. Made of wood and stone masonry, it has a raised front porch of the kind where you might expect to see John Walton relaxing after a day chopping lumber. Recording equipment was installed in 1993, and for the rest of his life Johnny was able to record albums without leaving his own back yard.

  It was the smell that hit me when we walked in: musty and lived in. Not an exact match for Eau de Smithwicks, Brylcreem et Crumpets, but not far off. It was the smell of old men and country music, the whiff of granddad and Hazzard County. And what caught my eye first wasn't the guitars, the cabling, microphones or state-of-the-art recording equipment – though they were all there in abundance – but the mug tree on the kitchen table, the chintzy lampshade in the hall, the brush and poker by the fireplace, the kitsch seventies table and chairs. Straight ahead as we entered the main space was a tallboy covered with crocheted linen, on top of which sat a carved wooden mirror a
nd a cluster of family photos including a smiling Johnny and June, both sporting fabulous bouffant hair.

  I've spent a lot of time in a lot of studios, some of historical note, most not. For the best part they are large, airless spaces with faders and flashing lights. Cash Cabin made other studios look like caravans. Not because of its size – it was smaller than most – and not because of the equipment; there was no excess of 'outboard' (as hardware is known in production circles, with electricity being known as 'juice', and new equipment being called 'kit').

  What set it apart was the atmosphere. The vibe. The feel. There was more magic in the Cash Cabin than in Abbey Road, Air Studios and Rak put together. Stuffed animal heads looked on from the walls, interspersed between tastefully chosen pictures from Johnny's life. In the kitchen he stood with June backstage at a show – her beaming with pride and affection, him still looking dangerous twenty years and forty pounds after he gave up amphetamines and starting forest fires. Above the tallboy a black and white portrait of him as an old man looked stately and ghostly, like he was watching us from down the ages. Y'all behave now.

  Johnny had died exactly three years earlier. As there is no book of etiquette on how to behave when being shown around the famous home studio of a recently deceased legend by said legend's only son, Chris and I stood frozen in front of Johnny's portrait, unsure what to say. I'm not sure I was even breathing. John Carter, tall and broad with a splendid auburn goatee and chunky sideburns, a light Tennessee accent and a gentle manner, clearly sensed the nerves.

  'Feel free to take a look around. Take some pictures if you like.' Then he and Jack went into the control room to power up.

  From the Persian rug on the oak floor of the main performance room, we shuffled through the open-plan, diner-style kitchen into the piano room, not daring to touch the keys of Johnny's 1896 Steinway, guarded by a deer head on the wall above. In a small living space a photograph of Bob Dylan – from the artwork of Nashville Skyline – sat in the fireplace, lit by a deer-antler chandelier. We photographed the carpets, the walls, the ceiling. This was Johnny's special place and there was no detail too trifling for our admiration. Returning to the mixing room we found Jack and John attending to a Mac, mixing desk and twenty-four channel thingummyjigs nestled among the hand-hewn woodwork.

  It seemed intrusive to ask about Johnny, but this desk was where five of my favourite artist's best albums were recorded by my favourite producer, and I wanted to hear about it from John.

  'So this place was special to your dad?'

  'Absolutely. Dad spent a lot of time here – that's his chair right there.' He pointed at one of two sumptuous black leather chairs pulled up to the console.

  'And whose is the other?'

  'Usually the producer's.'

  'Rick Rubin's then?

  'Yup. Take a seat. You want to hear a couple of tunes I've been working on?'

  We sat and listened to some of his latest productions, John in his daddy's chair, me in Rick Rubin's, proud as a five-year-old invited to the cockpit of a jumbo jet. And for once in my life, I didn't screw it up. Not like the time I told Damon Albarn he needed to improve his pitch. (I was talking about football, he thought I was talking about his singing.) Or the time I hung up on the lead singer of Wales' biggest heavy rock band Lost Prophets because I didn't think he sounded Welsh enough. Or the time I accidentally told Cher she looked like a witch.

  No, this time I held it together. We talked about music, John's fascination with medieval English legends, the books of Julian Cope, his taste for the films of Werner Herzog and how his cold was getting bad.

  After a while I left Chris, Jack and John talking and spent a few moments alone in each room, quality time with the memory of the Man in Black. I felt like my team had won. To the right of the kitchen was a vocal booth, fashioned from wood and with bark still peeling in places. Above it John had framed an A3 piece of paper from his dad. Written on it in a shaky hand were the chords for the first verse of 'I Walk the Line', and underneath the words:

  I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

  I keep my eyes wide open all the time

  I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

  Because you're mine I walk the line

  Happy 10th Birthday John. Love from Dad.

  If you can read that without welling up then you're tougher than I was that night. I returned to the control room. John thanked us for coming, posed for a photograph and headed back to the house to tend to his cold. We followed Jack in convoy onto the freeway in silence, thrilled and exhausted. Chris held out his hand. We shook. Nothing else needed to be said.

  31 OCTOBER

  RETURN OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

  I got up and checked the website for responses to our request for company from a few days previously. Joe and I had made up, but we needed other people around us – and soon – if we were to reach Winter Haven without falling out completely.

  There was a handful of replies. One in particular stood out, from a cyberfriend of long-standing, Annie Rich. Real name Courtney, she had been by far the most enthusiastic and helpful of our online pals since we had set up the website earlier in the year. A lifelong Gram fanatic (her online moniker comes from the opening line of 'Grievous Angel' – 'Won't you scratch my itch, sweet Annie Rich?'), we had made a loose arrangement to meet up at the end of the journey as she had grown up in Gram's home town of Waycross. These days Charleston was home, several hours to the north in South Carolina, but she planned to drive down and show us around Waycross, the penultimate stop before Winter Haven.

  There were several reasons why I was excited about meeting her. Firstly, her email expressing interest in being involved in our silly project revealed a passion hitherto unencountered in anyone not directly associated with the GP story. Secondly, her name was very nearly an anagram of 'country'. And finally, judging from her profile picture, she was unspeakably pretty.

  Date: 30 Oct, 10.43 p.m.

  From: Annie Rich

  Chris & Joe,

  I would absolutely love it if you guys could make it to Charleston! I realize it may not be possible (It's a 7.5 hour drive from Nashville), but I thought I would just throw this sample itinerary your way... do with it what you will:

  * Come to Charleston on Wednesday or Thursday (stay with me, of course).

  * Go with me and friends on Thursday night to the Charleston County Fair to see the Charlie Daniels Band. These events combined will be an unparalleled 'Southern' experience that I promise you will enjoy. If nothing else it will be some of the best people-watching you have ever experienced in your life.

  * Then on Friday morning we'll get up and go to Waycross, etc.

  Either way I also wanted to try to talk y'all into staying an extra day in Waycross. Hope you're enjoying the ride so far!

  As ever,

  Courtney

  I shouted to Joe, who was in the bathroom, shaving. 'Mate?'

  'Yes, m'colleague?'

  'Who's Charlie Daniels?'

  'Who's Charlie Daniels?'

  'Yes, who's Charlie Daniels?'

  The top of his head emerged at the doorframe. 'You don't know who Charlie Daniels is?'

  'No! Who the fuck is he?!'

  'Why do you want to know?'

  'Courtney's invited us to the Charleston County Fair and he's playing. Do we want to see Charlie Daniels?'

  Joe sprang with both feet into the hallway. Wearing nothing but underpants, a smear of shaving foam down his right cheek and a grin that would frighten small children, he began hopping from one foot to the other. Then, half singing, half rapping in his best Southern drawl, he broke into song:

  'The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' for a soul to steal…' – a doh-si-doh to the bed – '… he was in a bind 'cause he was way behind and he was willin' to make a deal…' – a drum fill on the bedside table – 'when he came across this young man sawin' on a fiddle and playing it hot, the devil jumped up on a hickory stump and said "Boy, let me tell yo
u what"…'

  The performance continued, punctuated with stabs to the air with the razor, across the bed to the window.

  'Fire on the mountain, run boys, run! The chicken's in the House of the Rising Sun!' – he circled back past the foot of the bed – 'Chicken in the bread pan pickin' out dough. Granny will your dog bite, no child no…' – and with a final swipe of Gillette past my nose, he ended the performance, jazz hands aloft, on one knee in front of the mirror.

  'Very nice,' I applauded. 'But who the fuck is Charlie fucking Daniels?'

  'He did "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". That was "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".'

  And off he popped to clean his teeth.

  You'll recall that Joe is highly adept at memorising quotations as well as given to sudden bouts of rhetorical flourish in everyday speech. It's high impact stuff. Dropping a precisely fitting bon mot into social intercourse impresses at any dinner party, and the effort he puts in – if he puts any in at all – certainly pays off.