Implausible as the theory may sound, in the realm of music there are icons and then there are ICONS. The former are those artists who, over the course of a career, configure an indelible persona for themselves. The latter are the artists who, in forging just such an abiding creative image, also manage to represent a cultural paradigm shift. Johnny Cash is, without question, one of the select few in the second category and, at the time of this performance at the San Francisco venue, he was poised for his ascension to that select status in the world of country music, without even knowing the elevation was due in very short order (over the next twelve months or so).
Of course, the imposing figure often referred to as ‘The Man in Black’ no doubt had other matters on his mind. For instance, his continuing sobriety after some years of substance abuse, indirectly referenced in the opening “Cocaine Blues,” resides right alongside the positive life experience represented by his marriage to June Carter, a member of the C&W’s royal family; the diminutive, spunky woman appears in a rough-hewn duet on “Jackson” and in a solo performance for “Tall Lover Man.” Her appearance not only helps to pace the approximately hour set, but also serves to humanize the larger-than-life headliner, who artfully closes with his signature tune, “I Walk The Line”.
Prior to that crowd-pleasing finale, performing to a one-third capacity audience and ably backed by his accompanists for a quarter-century–The Tennessee Three of Luther Perkins on electric guitar, Marshall Grant on bass and W.S. Holland on drums– Cash offered music that was a full and complete reflection of himself. The setlist is wholly without frills or affectation, whether well-known in the form of “Ring of Fire” or, in some cases not so famous, as with “Bad News,” a tune from John D. Loudermilk, the composer of the modern folk/blues standard “Tobacco Road.”
Other inclusions in the single set (the only one of two in possession of the Owsley Stanley Foundation) have their own cache. “Long Black Veil” was a career-defining hit for Lefty Frizell before Cash covered it and it was subsequently included in The Band’s debut album Music From Big Pink. In a roundabout association with that tune are “One Too Many Mornings” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” numbers authored by the aforementioned iconic group’s mentor, Bob Dylan, whom Johnny championed early in the latter’s career. Likewise circuitous in relation to those selections is “This Land Is Your Land,” perhaps the most well-known song of the Nobel Laureate’s idol Woody Guthrie; the chugging rhythm, spoken word interludes, and wheezy harmonica also called to mind Dylan in his earliest days, suggesting a tacit homage from the native Arkansan to the Bard from Minnesota. Hearing this it occurs both men may well have seen themselves in each other at the time they were perennials at the Newport Folk Festival in the early Sixties.
That bare-bones style Johnny Cash utilizes here belies the creative packaging of this eighth release in the Sonic Journals series. A hardbound cover replete with flowery graphics holds twenty-eight pages of informative content including poster and comic book artwork, photos and essays from the artist’s son John Carter Cash, Widespread Panic’s Dave Schools as well as Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir (who took such pleasure in leading that band through “Big River”). Each is thought-provoking in its own way, the latter perhaps the most in terms of history, but that prose only echoes the perspective supplied by the curators of the Owsley Stanley Foundation.
Those individuals’ devotion to the preservation of the legendary recordist’s legacy is on par with engineer Jeffrey Norman’s allegiance to audio accuracy. The clarity of the sonics here captures the ambiance of the room from the very start and in short order crystallizes the mix of the instruments and voice(s), thereby bringing a tangible realism to the spring 1968 proceedings. As a result, it’s not unreasonable to theorize Johnny Cash At The Carousel Ballroom may someday ascend to that same rarefied status as those seminal concert pieces (At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin) released in the twelve months following this very occasion. Stylishly preserved for posterity as is the release, it certainly deserves to.
