Johnny Cash — Johnny Cash at the Carousel Ballroom

There’s very little of anything that could be considered country in my collection, either on vinyl or CD, and although I like an amount of Johnny Cash’s songs, there’s an amount of them I don’t like, too. We have a fairly broad collection of his Sun recordings on CD, but that hardly ever gets listened to. Like a lot of people, I was absolutely enamored of the first American Recordings he did with Rick Rubin, and some of the subsequent discs in that series as well; those saw a lot of play when they were current, not as much today. The covers and more contemporary stuff remain great, but when it gets too country, I just check out.

But I heard this playing at Forever Changes when he first got it in and was quite taken with what I heard, and really interested in what it represented. This was a live concert at the Carousel Ballroom in 1968, just before his classic “Live at Folsom Prison” was released. He had just (mostly) cleaned up (it wouldn’t be the last time), and had married June Carter just weeks before this concert. He’s playing in the heart of Haight-Ashbury, and being recorded by The Grateful Dead’s sound man (and much more), Owsley Stanley. And, it’s really quite remarkable. Cash seems to be at the top of his powers here, singing plainly, playing clean. Clearly a turning point for Cash, coming just four months after his recording at Folsom – the recording he credited with helping him turn his career back around.

It doesn’t appear that this was recorded with the intent of releasing it, and in fact it didn’t see a release until the Owsley Stanley Foundation, dedicated to preserving Stanley’s 1300 live concert soundboard recordings, released this last year. It is really quite remarkable – Cash’s son said he didn’t think there were any live recordings that weren’t intended to be an album, so this captures something special. Playing this does make me go back and pick out some of the best tracks from the American Recordings series to listen to again.

I should add that the packaging on this is excellent, including a very informative booklet.