I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
September 28, 2012 4:37 PM   Subscribe

Johnny Cash once called 1968 the happiest year of his life. It was the year his masterpiece At Folsom Prison came out, the year he was named the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year, and the year he married the love of his life, June Carter. So it was a fortunate time for a young filmmaker named Robert Elfstrom to meet up with Cash for the making of a documentary. Elfstrom traveled with Cash for several months in late 1968 and early 1969. The resulting film, Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music, is a revealing look at Cash, his creative process and his ties to family. [via]
posted by netbros (14 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
Astute viewers will recognize clips from this that appeared in the "Hurt" video.
posted by entropicamericana at 4:40 PM on September 28, 2012 [2 favorites]


Thank you.
posted by Malice at 5:01 PM on September 28, 2012


I love Johnny Cash, but for the life of me I can't figure out why a) he is hunting crows and b) he decides to make a pet out of a crow that he winged.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:04 PM on September 28, 2012


Great post though.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:04 PM on September 28, 2012


I was first exposed to Johnny back in my conservative evangelical days (early 90's) via an version of the "Man in Black" he did the the Christian punk band One Bad Pig. The two things that struck me about him were that his faith and social justice were one in the same and that he refuse to be stuck in the past. The live recordings from Folsom prison and San Quentin from around this are are something I can listen to over and over and still enjoy 20 years on.
posted by empty vessel at 5:09 PM on September 28, 2012


I love Johnny Cash, but for the life of me I can't figure out why a) he is hunting crows and b) he decides to make a pet out of a crow that he winged.

I looked into that and apparently he was out hunting and shot him on an instinct/whim (being a hunter ran deep in him and his upbringing) and when he picked up the crow he realized he did wrong, and maybe he shouldn't have shot him.

So he then spent a week trying to nurse it back to health and make up for shooting it in the first place. I don't know if it survived.
posted by Malice at 5:11 PM on September 28, 2012


I love Johnny Cash, but for the life of me I can't figure out why a) he is hunting crows and b) he decides to make a pet out of a crow that he winged.

I grew up around hunters, and a lot of them would hunt crows, some even using crow calls to attract them. Most of the time, they hunt them on their own land, as they're seen as pests. Others would do it for the hell of it, as crows were plentiful and not really missed by anyone. I guess Cash decided to write a song for and nurse the crow because he regretted the act.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:12 PM on September 28, 2012


I see. AFAIK, where I live it's against the law to hunt crows or seagulls, although I suppose things have changed over the past 40-some-odd years.

That was one hell of a racket he was making with that duck call.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:42 PM on September 28, 2012


Somebody gave me this on DVD about six or seven years ago. Such a great little flick. It really gives you a sense of who Cash was.
posted by Rangeboy at 5:45 PM on September 28, 2012


There's a Johnny Cash Music Fest next weekend, October 5th, in Jonesboro, AR.

Willie Nelson, Dierks Bentley, and The Civil Wars are performing (gratis, I understand) to raise money to benefit the Johnny Cash Boyhood Home project in Dyess, AR, his hometown.
posted by grimjeer at 6:14 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


So he then spent a week trying to nurse it back to health and make up for shooting it in the first place. I don't know if it survived.

Shot a crow in Jonesboro just to watch it die.
posted by hal9k at 6:48 PM on September 28, 2012 [1 favorite]


Does it have the part when he drives around in the desert in an RV with blacked out windows doing meth for weeks on end? Because that has always sounded awesome. No horrible. No awesome. No I guess I really can't place that image in my judgement space at all. But I'd love to see it. No I wouldn't.
posted by freebird at 9:08 PM on September 28, 2012


This ran on our local PBS affiliate within the past year -- it is quite the testament to Cah's character.
posted by y2karl at 4:44 PM on September 29, 2012


I've always loved the last bit that starts just before the final credits, where they show the recording session of Johnny singing "The Devil To Pay" with Carl Perkins.
posted by snottydick at 7:38 AM on October 1, 2012


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