Third Man Records is operating a little differently these days. The Nashville headquarters of the record label Jack White, which has a record store and a small local on-site, has stopped booking shows. Fans can enter the record store, which is filled with White Stripes artifacts plus a vinyl recording booth, by appointment, with a capacity limited to four or five.
But still, Ben Blackwell, who founded the label along with White and Ben Swank, says the company is kept afloat by its mail order business. “April and May were almost like two months of vacation,” says Blackwell. “Considering how bad it could be, we are very, very lucky.”
Part of Third Man’s mail order business is the Vault series, which allows fans to pay to receive a quarterly surprise launch by mail. Vault’s more than 40 releases have included rare albums by White Stripes, Raconteurs, and Dead Weather, plus limited-edition releases from Pearl Jam, Sleep, Margo Price, and more.
Now, The Vault is about to release one of its most exciting archival finds to date: a lost live album by Johnny Cash. The show was recorded on April 29, 1973 at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. The occasion was A week to remember, six nights of music organized by Clive Davis to celebrate the legendary Columbia Records list. Miles Davis, Staples Singers, Bruce Springsteen and Earth, Wind and Fire performed. Cash brought his road show, which included his wife June Carter Cash and guitarist Carl Perkins, his friend going back to his Sun Records days, for a set full of classics: the night begins with a loud “Big River,” which leads Kris Kristofferson. “Sunday morning going down.” There’s a wild mix of “Folsom Prison Blues / Wreck of the Old 97 / Orange Blossom Special”, plus “Jackson”.
“There was no song that everyone in the audience didn’t know,” says Blackwell. “It’s like, ‘Wow, shit, man. You almost took it for granted. It’s miraculous.’
Blackwell says Sony, who releases Jack White’s solo albums, approached Third Man about the release. “They were like, ‘Hey, have you ever considered doing external artists for the Vault?'” Says Blackwell. “And it was exactly what we were looking for. It has no other tent than Johnny Cash, and this is something that had not been heard. “
The early 1970s were a transformative time for Cash. He had ended the previous decade as a big star, with nine successful albums, including Johnny Cash in Folsom Prison, plus a weekly TV show, but things were about to change. “The seventies saw the implosion of my recording career,” he wrote in his autobiography. As he continued to sell shows, sales were delayed when he turned his attention to religious music. Cash spent much of his time in this era in Gospel way, an ambitious double album and film. Filmed in Israel for 30 days, it told the story of Jesus. “My own version of the success or failure of my music is a little different from the one prevailing in ‘the industry,'” Cash wrote in his memoirs. “For example, one of the main reasons my record sales fell so dramatically in the early 1970s is that making secular records was simply not my first priority; that’s when I refused to record ‘City of New Orleans’ because I was too busy working on Gospel way. “
Cash talks about Steve Goodman’s classic “City of New Orleans,” which Arlo Guthrie would make famous in 1972; Cash performs an excellent version on the release of Third Man. He’s chatting throughout the set, calling pianist Larry Butler to play solo, and telling the story of how he wrote “The Ballad of Barbara,” a tale of how to get away from a marriage. , on an airplane in Australia a month earlier. . “The 1970s for me was a time of abundance and growth, not only in terms of finances and property, but personally, spiritually, and in my work,” Cash wrote. “My marriage to June grew and flourished; John Carter came into the world; Bible study became a major port of my life and produced the most ambitious project of my career to date. “
The album will be released on white vinyl along with a DVD of behind-the-scenes footage never seen before. The package will also include a seven-inch single, featuring songs that came out of John Carter Cash’s “Forever Words” project, where he recruited artists to put music to the poetry Cash left behind. Ruston Kelly to Perform Cash’s “Dark and Bloody Ground”; the other side will feature a mysterious artist. Register before July 31 to receive the Vault package.
