Johnny Cash: The Life

by Robert Hilburn

  Johnston didn’t have more clout in the decision because he was on shaky ground at Columbia. He had butted heads with the New York brass too often, and his announcement in the spring of 1967 that the label planned to drop half its sixty-artist roster caused enormous resentment among Nashville traditionalists. When Clive Davis went to Nashville that fall for an industry dinner, he was surprised when the comedienne Minnie Pearl, a beloved figure in country music, cornered him. “We have a way of doing things in Nashville,” she told the Columbia president. “Although we compete, we do it with civility and respect. I’ve got to tell you that your man Bob Johnston is conducting business with neither of those adjectives. He is creating such an image problem for Columbia Records. On behalf of the Nashville community, we don’t like him.”

  Adding this to what he was hearing from his own executives, Davis took action: he replaced Johnston as head of the Nashville office with writer-producer Billy Sherrill. Davis agreed to let Johnston continue to work, under the title “executive producer at large,” with Cash and Dylan. “What choice did they have?” Johnston says. “Who else did they have who Cash and Dylan would work with?”

  On the day after the Dylan session, Cash got a phone call from Don Davis, a music publisher and two-time husband of Anita Carter. Davis, who had earlier tipped him off to “Jackson,” told Cash he had a song that would be a natural for him. It was written by Playboy cartoonist and songwriter Shel Silverstein, whose earlier parody, “25 Minutes to Go,” was a highlight of the Folsom album.

  Cash got a kick out of the zany tune about a father’s odd way of teaching his son to stand up for himself, and he promised to record “A Boy Named Sue” as soon as he got back from the West Coast. But June placed a copy of Silverstein’s song in a stack of material John was taking with him on the trip—on the outside chance he’d want to use it in the prison show.

  III

  San Quentin was just two days away when Cash met with the Granada TV representatives before a concert in San Diego, the second stop on the tour. Only vaguely aware of their plans for the documentary, Cash had been approaching San Quentin as just another show date, which meant his regular set list. When the Granada team of director Michael Darlow and producer Jo Durden-Smith asked him to write a song to commemorate the occasion, Cash was cool to the idea. Afterward, however, he began to think about the prison concert more seriously. Over the next forty-eight hours, he did what he did best—tried to find common ground with his audience by looking at the world through their eyes.

  Because of his past San Quentin visits, Cash knew that the prison, just across the bay from San Francisco, was a much tougher environment than Folsom; it housed the state’s only death row for men. Security would be far more intense. After the planning meeting, he started focusing on San Quentin’s menacing reputation and he began to imagine the rage he sensed in the men—and the anger he sometimes felt in himself.

  By the time he stepped on the stage on the night of February 24, he had written two songs. One was based on his arrest for public intoxication in Starkville, Mississippi, in May 1965; the other was a more important reflection on pent-up rage. He was again a man with a mission, and he did try to echo Folsom in one sense. He was brought a song by an inmate—a wistful tune titled “I Don’t Know Where I’m Bound” by someone identified on the record only as T. Cuttie. It was an undistinguished number, yet Cash was seduced once again by the idea of redemption, and he vowed to find a place for it in the show.

  Cash was still fiddling with the set order when Johnston told him not to worry about it and just concentrate on his performance. They could put together the album set list in the studio just as they had done with the Folsom album; the order he played the songs in didn’t matter. Even as he was about to go onstage, nothing was set in concrete except that he wanted to bunch the new songs together near the end of the show.

  “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he said to the 1,400 convicts, repeating what had become his standard greeting on tour. He opened with two of his favorites, “Big River” and “I Still Miss Someone,” followed by “Wreck of the Old 97” and some other concert staples before getting to the first prison-related number, “Folsom Prison Blues.”

  Much to the delight of the crowd, he brought June onstage to do “Jackson” and “Darling Companion,” a John Sebastian song they had learned from Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. It was a half hour into the show when Cash played “I Don’t Know Where I’m Bound” after announcing that the song had been written by a San Quentin inmate. The response was enthusiastic, but it didn’t match the outpouring for “Greystone Chapel” at Folsom.

  Cash then unveiled his two new songs. In “Starkville City Jail,” he made fun of an overly aggressive police force, but “San Quentin” was his trump card.

  “I was thinking about you guys yesterday,” Cash told the convicts, suddenly serious. “I’ve been here three times before, and I think I understand a little how you feel about some things.”

  The inmates listened attentively.

  “It’s none of my business how you feel about some other things, and I don’t give a damn about how you feel about some other things. I tried to put myself in your place, and this is how I think I’d feel about San Quentin.”

  Not knowing what to expect, the convicts were startled by the venom of the song’s opening lines: San Quentin, you’ve been livin’ hell to me.

  The audience let loose a chilling roar of brotherhood.

  You’ve hosted me since nineteen sixty-three.

  I’ve seen ’em come and go and I’ve seen ’em die

  And long ago I stopped askin’ why,

  San Quentin, I hate every inch of you.

  Again, a monstrous howl.

  You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me thru an’ thru.

  And I’ll walk out a wiser, weaker man;

  Mister Congressman, why can’t you understand?

  The number went on for nearly four minutes, and the tension in the room grew with each passing line. When Cash spat out “San Quentin may you rot and burn in hell,” he could sense the crowd wanting more, and he played the song again, as Johnston had requested he do to make sure they had a solid version on tape.

  Johnston was struck by the drama of the moment.

  “All the guards were nervous. They thought there was going to be a riot.” He says Cash felt an immense power when the prisoners got off their benches and, against show rules, stood on the tables and cheered. Adds Johnston, “He realized that all he had to say was, ‘Let’s go!’ and there would have been a full-scale riot. He told me after, ‘I was tempted.’”

  Cash instead lightened the mood by playing “Wanted Man,” a minor song he wrote with Bob Dylan that boasted of an outlaw’s rambling ways, very much inspired by Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.” It even included a sly nod to being “sidetracked in Juárez.”

  Pleased with the two versions of “San Quentin,” Cash took a breather while Carl Perkins entertained the crowd. During the break, he reached into his briefcase and pulled out the lyrics to Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue.” It was likely a spontaneous move, because no one in the band or on the Granada production team knew that he planned to do the song. After Perkins ended his song, Cash put the lyrics on a stand and asked the musicians to make up some music to accompany him.

  It took a good thirty seconds for Perkins and the others to hook into a groove, but it finally came together deftly, and the San Quentin convicts began howling with laughter. Cash followed “Sue” with another twenty minutes of music, but he and Johnston both knew they had the heart of the album in the snarling, tightly woven “San Quentin” and this crazy novelty tune, “A Boy Named Sue.”

  As Cash headed on to the next tour stop, Johnston flew back to Nashville to begin putting the album together, and the Granada TV crew returned to London to work on the documentary. Everyone agreed on one thing: they had another winner.

  IV

  There was a fresh face on the California tour who brought a n
ew level of professionalism to Cash’s concert life. Lou Robin started producing jazz concerts while an undergraduate at Claremont Men’s College near Los Angeles, then built one of the nation’s most successful concert promotion companies in the 1960s with partner Allen Tinkley. They even did a date with the Beatles.

  By the late 1960s, Robin and Tinkley had become increasingly exasperated by some of the “craziness” surrounding many of the rock acts, and they thought about expanding into the suddenly emerging field of country music. Barbara John, who did promotion for country radio stations in Southern California, suggested they do some shows with Cash. Robin was leery. What about all the drugs and the missed dates? She assured him that Cash had turned things around and arranged for Robin and Tinkley to meet with Holiff in July 1968. By the time they sat down at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Folsom album had just taken off, and Robin felt he could not only expand Cash’s bookings in the States but do good business in Europe and Australia as well.

  To start, he asked Holiff to sell him a string of California and Nevada dates. If that worked out, he would think about doing all of Cash’s shows. Holiff liked the idea of selling all the dates to a single promoter. He was tired of the tedious logistics of touring, haggling with individual promoters on Cash’s fee for the night, and, most of all, the endless hassle of collecting money from promoters who tried to stiff or shortchange him. Plus, the arrangement would free him to do what he liked best—think about the big picture. Holiff sold Robin some West Coast shows starting the following February. The price was $5,000 a night.

  Neither Robin nor Tinkley had ever seen Cash onstage. In fact, they hedged their bet by booking Marty Robbins as a supporting act on the tour to make sure they drew enough of an audience to earn back their guarantee. Typically, a show the size of Cash’s would have to gross around $12,000 to $15,000 in ticket sales to cover the expenses of staging it—from hall rental, security, and sound equipment to advertising and the simple matter of printing the tickets. With the top tickets averaging around $3 at the time, it meant that their company, Artist Consultants, needed to draw at least four thousand people.

  It was at San Quentin that Robin first saw Cash live, and he was dazzled by his charisma and command onstage. Robin also liked Cash personally. After all the drugs and irrational behavior Robin had seen on the rock circuit, he found Cash refreshingly warm and responsible. “He and June were both very nice, very appreciative,” Robin says. The promoter was equally impressed four nights later when Cash drew twelve thousand fans to the Oakland Coliseum Arena. By now, the Folsom album had been on the national charts for ten months, and his $5,000 fee proved to be a huge bargain.

  To show good faith, Robin, a soft-spoken, unfailingly polite man, went backstage after the show and gave John and June a $5,000 bonus. “We thought it was right and maybe it would help build a relationship of trust,” Robin says. “They were so touched they cried. They said there had been so many nights they were worried about just getting paid at all.” This new relationship was off to a solid start.

  The check took on even greater emotional significance an hour later when June’s sister Helen learned that her teenaged son Kenny had been gravely injured in a car crash in Nashville. John and June used the bonus check to charter a plane to fly Helen home, though the boy died while the plane was still in the air. Cash was so touched by the gesture of the $5,000 check that he would still refer to it in interviews years later.

  Cash returned to Nashville the first week in March and went straight to a Columbia studio to hear what Johnston had done with the San Quentin tapes. He was worried that the album might lack the urgency of the Folsom package, but he was delighted by what he heard. Folsom would remain closest to him because it was recorded first, but he felt the new album was every bit as dynamic, maybe even more so. Cash loved how Johnston kept both versions of “San Quentin” on the LP to underscore the volatility of the moment, and he was pleased by how well “A Boy Named Sue” had turned out.

  Before heading home, he turned to Johnston and said, “Bob, I’ve got a problem with the TV show. If I can get Dylan, it’ll be a hit, and if I can’t, I don’t think I even want to do it. Can you get him to go on the show?”

  Johnston said he’d try.

  When the producer phoned Dylan with the request, Dylan put him on hold and Johnston figured he was going to say no.

  “That was the longest three or four minutes because I thought he was going to say, I’ve got a gig or I’m doing something, but he came back and said, ‘Bob, I don’t have anything to wear.’ I said, ‘God Almighty, what color do you want? What size do you wear?’ I finally said, ‘I’ll take care of everything.’ I ended up getting him a white suit that was too long and a black suit that was too short.”

  On March 12, Cash got more good news at the annual Grammy Awards ceremony when he was honored for best country vocal for “Folsom Prison Blues” and best liner notes for his introduction to the Folsom album.

  Four days later, Cash taped the first of the TV shows—and there was worry within the Cash camp about how he would react to the pressure. “We had all seen him turn to the pills so often during moments of stress, and there was lots of stress on everybody when the show started, especially John,” said Marshall Grant. “But he was straight as an arrow. He was the old John again and he looked great. We were all so proud of him.”

  V

  Cash was the host, but it quickly became clear to him that creative matters, from the choice of guests to show format, were ruled by Screen Gems. Stan Jacobson, whom Cash had insisted the production company hire, was on board, but as a writer, not in one of the power positions of producer, director, or talent booker.

  This was the age of variety shows in television; there were a dozen or so on the air at the time, including the Ed Sullivan, Glen Campbell, Jim Nabors, and Tom Jones programs. After the choice of host and format, the most important aspect of a series was the selection of guests. As the weakest network, ABC had to scramble for talent. Screen Gems faced the further problem of having to persuade guests to fly to Nashville, which was not a regular stop on the showbiz itinerary. Then there was the matter of Screen Gems wanting to select guests who would cross-promote other ABC shows or Screen Gems productions.

  All these various requirements led at times to a crazy quilt of guests, much to the chagrin of Cash. The Screen Gems team tried to get off to a good start, at least with country audiences, by booking Glen Campbell and Jeannie C. Riley, whose calling card in 1968 was a huge country-pop hit called “Harper Valley PTA.”

  Coincidentally, it was profits from that single that largely made it possible for Shelby Singleton, a veteran record producer who released “Harper Valley PTA” on his Plantation label, to buy the rights to the historic Sun recordings from Sam Phillips for nearly a million dollars later that same year. Singleton knew that Cash was going to have a TV show, and he figured the exposure would reignite demand. And sure enough, two new greatest hits packages on Sun sold enough in three months for Singleton to earn back his entire investment.

  The guest lists for the next few shows were more of a mixed bag. For every musical act that would have made sense to Cash (Gordon Lightfoot, Jerry Reed, Doug Kershaw, Linda Ronstadt), there was a series of actors (Dan Blocker, Eddie Albert, Doug McClure), comics (Fannie Flagg, Ron Carey, Charlie Callas), or teen pop acts (the Cowsills, Joey Scarbury). Jacobson tried to convey Cash’s displeasure to executives on the show, but he too was basically an outsider that first season.

  Cash was frustrated by his lack of input, but he kept looking forward to the Dylan episode, which would be the fifth show taped but the first to air. He thought that the power of that show would persuade Screen Gems to have more respect for his musical ideas. In a magazine interview at the time, Cash tried to be optimistic. “I never liked television, but now I have decided I am going to like it,” he said. “I mean, if I’m going to have to do it every day, I might as well enjoy it. I don’t like being so confined, but I like my guests, an
d it’s my show, and it has to be good.”

  June’s role in the TV series was minimal, but she attended every rehearsal and taping, chiefly to help support John in his run-ins with the production team and to offer suggestions. With such pretty young singers as Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell guesting on the show, June wanted to keep an eye on her husband, too. When she noticed Ronstadt’s skimpy, sexy attire, she even asked the show’s wardrobe specialist to “dress her up a bit.”

  When Dylan showed up for the taping on May 1, he was as riddled with nerves as Cash. For all their acclaim and fame, these were both essentially shy, private men, another thing they had in common. If they were nervous about going onstage to sing to adoring audiences, imagine how much more anxious they were stepping in front of cold, indifferent TV cameras, knowing that millions of people would be watching them. Cash tried to make the experience as easy as possible for Dylan, inviting him and his wife, Sara, to stay at his house. Cash had frequently invited some of Nashville’s most promising songwriters to his house to spend the evening playing their new songs. He put together one such gathering in Dylan’s honor. In the end, Cash was grateful that Dylan had agreed to appear on the show, and Dylan couldn’t wait to get the whole thing over with.

  Dylan had been to the downtown Ryman Auditorium before, but only as a fan, eager to check out the mother church of country music. The fact that Dylan had pretty much been out of the public eye since his 1966 motorcycle accident made him even more jittery about doing the show. And sure enough, his appearance was a magnet for some obsessive Dylan fans around the country, many of whom began lining up outside the Ryman hours before the taping. Backstage, Dylan kept his distance from other cast members and avoided the press. He was finally cornered by Red O’Donnell, a popular columnist for the Nashville Banner, but his answers were brief and unrevealing. Dylan seemed relieved when he could finally step onstage to perform two songs from Nashville Skyline before sitting down with Cash for a duet on “Girl from the North Country.” Even together they looked uncomfortable. To make everything worse, the stone wall set looked a bit ridiculous. But the original set—a barnyard—had been worse. Dylan was so offended that he told Cash he couldn’t sing in front of that, saying, “My fans would laugh me off the stage.” Cash, through Jacobson, got that idea scrapped.