A historic and never-before-heard 1968 Johnny Cash live album, recorded by the sonic and counterculture pioneer Owsley "Bear" Stanley, has been released for the first time today. Recorded at San Francisco's Carousel Ballroom in April of that year, just days before the release of Cash's legend-making 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. Available now as Bear’s Sonic Journals: Johnny Cash, At The Carousel Ballroom, April 24 1968, this unprecedented moment of cultural collision has been met with praise across musical worlds: 

"A revelation...Bear Stanley enhances the intimacy of the concert experience in a most unusual and highly impactful fashion." - Salon 

"Stanley gives it a character unique from Folsom and San Quentin...the album creates a sensation of the listener being placed at center stage." - Rolling Stone

"A doozy of a show...it sounds spectacular...the music envelops you." - Garden & Gun

"Brilliant...this one from Cash is particularly special...gives the listener the feeling that they’re right in the middle of it all." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Cash is at the very height of his performance powers...Stanley's recording is well-mixed, with healthy doses of audience sound that don’t distract from the star attraction." - Consequence

"This setup was perfect...it’s very easy to suspend your disbelief and aurally recreate the on-stage arrangement...this is a truly great-sounding recording!" - Copper Magazine

"A fully immersive listening experience. this recording puts the listener in the middle of the room alongside the hootin' and hollerin' crowd of hippies." - Qobuz

"Something truly special...we are not only introduced to Johnny Cash in a completely different light but also taken into the extraordinary mind and innovation of Owsley Stanley." - Grateful Web

At The Carousel Ballroom is out now on all digital platforms via Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment. It is also available on CD 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. The release will also be coming to LP later in 2021. In addition, At The Carousel Ballroom 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, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen Doc & Merle Watson and many more.