On September 24, the Owsley Stanley Foundation and Renew Records/BMG will release Bear’s Sonic Journals: Johnny Cash, At The Carousel Ballroom, April 24 1968, an historic and never-heard live concert recorded in San Francisco by innovative sound wizard Owsley Stanley. Captured in the heart of Haight-Ashbury, just days before the release of Cash’s iconic At Folsom Prison album (and over six months before the arrival of the equally revered At San Quentin), At The Carousel Ballroom serves as a third essential – and wholly unique – live document from the era, a moment of cultural collision, with Cash leaning into songs about society’s outcasts, while playing a venue operated by The Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead.
The live album, which will be released on CD/2LP, features new essays by Johnny and June Carter Cash’s son John Carter Cash, Owsley Stanley’s son Starfinder Stanley, The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, and Widespread Panic’s Dave Schools, as well as new art by Susan Archie, and a reproduction of the original Carousel Ballroom concert poster by Steve Catron. The release will also be widely available in all digital formats by Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment.
At The Carousel Ballroom captures Cash at the height of his charismatic powers, in playful and powerful dialogue with his then-new bride June Carter, and backed by his legendary band The Tennessee Three: guitarist Luther Perkins, bassist Marshall Grant and drummer W.S. Holland. His set list that evening diverged from other concerts of the time, as Cash chose to cover two Bob Dylan compositions (“Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright,” and his earliest known recording of “One Too Many Mornings”) and perform songs of the overlooked and underserved such as “The Ballad of Ira Hayes.”
Recorded by Stanley in a verité style, the album startles with its clarity and dimension. Many of the sound reproduction techniques that Stanley pioneered while serving as the in-house engineer at the Carousel are accepted sonic gospel today. When he listened back to the Cash concert, he knew he had captured something special, immediately earmarking it for preservation. This release marks the latest entry in the Owsley Stanley Foundation’s ‘Bear’s Sonic Journals’ series, which has previously included Stanley’s live recordings of The Allman Brothers Band, Tim Buckley, Doc & Merle Watson and many more.
“When you hear this, you feel like you are on the stage with the band,” says Starfinder. John Carter Cash agrees, describing At The Carousel Ballroom as “what I believe to be one of the most intimate and connected shows I have ever heard.”
JOHNNY CASH AT THE CAROUSEL BALLROOM, APRIL 24, 1968 TRACKLIST
1. Cocaine Blues
2. Long Black Veil
3. Orange Blossom Special (CD and Digital only)
4. Going to Memphis
5. The Ballad of Ira Hayes
6. Rock Island Line
7. Guess Things Happen That Way
8. One Too Many Mornings
9. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
10. Give My Love to Rose
11. Green, Green Grass of Home
12. Old Apache Squaw
13. Lorena
14. Forty Shades of Green
15. Bad News
16. Jackson
17. Tall Lover Man
18. June’s Song Introduction
19. Wildwood Flower
20. Foggy Mountain Top
21. This Land Is Your Land
22. Wabash Cannonball
23. Worried Man Blues
24. Long Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man
25. Ring of Fire
26. Big River
27. Don’t Take Your Guns to Town
28. I Walk the Line
