Johnny Cash's Message To The Marginalized In Counterculture San Francisco - A Never-Heard 1968 Live Version Of "The Ballad Of Ira Hayes" - Out Today

Listen To The Recently-Unearthed Recording From Grateful Dead Sound Wizard Owsley "Bear" Stanley Via Garden & Gun: https://gardenandgun.com/articles/a-never-before-released-johnny-cash-performance/

 'Bear's Sonic Journals: Johnny Cash, At The Carousel Ballroom, April 24, 1968,’ Out October 29 Via The Owsley Stanley Foundation, Renew Records/BMG and Legacy Recordings

On its surface Johnny Cash’s visit to the heart of hippie San Francisco in April 1968 might have seemed unexpected, but with a rare performance of “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes” the deep kinship between performer and audience that evening comes into full focus. Telling the tale of the famed Native American war hero at Iwo Jima, who gave everything to his country and received nothing in return, “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes” is the ultimate song for the systematically oppressed, the underserved, the overlooked and marginalized; an anthem for those who, with another war raging, felt disillusioned with their country all over again. In conjunction with legendary live records of the era, including At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin, “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes” cements At The Carousel Ballroom as a wholly unique example of Cash’s ability to give voice to the downtrodden and voiceless.

Listen to this live version of “The Ballad Of Ira Hayes,” released today to commemorate the 79th anniversary of Ira Hayes first enlisting in the United States Marine Corps on August 26, 1942, and read more via Garden & Gun: https://gardenandgun.com/articles/a-never-before-released-johnny-cash-performance/

Recorded by innovative sound wizard Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the entirety of this historic concert will be available for the first time on October 29 as ‘Bear’s Sonic Journals: Johnny Cash, At The Carousel Ballroom, April 24, 1968’ from the Owsley Stanley Foundation and Renew Records/BMG. Considered a sonic pioneer and unconventional genius, Stanley’s mix captures Cash’s unadorned voice entirely on the right channel and the Tennessee Three all on the left; setting the listener right between Johnny and his band as if they were center stage at the Carousel. It’s been deemed "probably the closest to what it actually sounded like to be in the audience for a Johnny Cash show in 1968” and proves once again why the avant garde techniques of Stanley (also the architect of The Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound”) are accepted as gospel today.

At The Carousel Ballroom will be released widely on all digital formats by Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, on October 29. It will also be available on CD/2LP from Renew Records/BMG with new essays by Johnny and June Carter Cash’s son John Carter Cash, 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. 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.

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