In 1969, ABC Walked the Line With ‘The Johnny Cash Show’

The Johnny Cash Show, Johnny Cash, 1969 — Everett Collection

Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, dubbed “The Mother Church of Country Music” and “The Carnegie Hall of the South,” famously hosted the Grand Ole Opry for decades. But between between 1969 and 1971, the auditorium hosted another showcase involving a country music legend: the ABC variety show The Johnny Cash Show.

Hosted by the Man in Black himself, The Johnny Cash Show kicked off on June 7, 1969, with Johnny Cash and wife June Carter Cash welcoming high-profile guests to the Ryman stage, as you’ll see below. As we mark another anniversary of the show’s premiere, here are fascinating facts about its production and legacy.

1Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan graced the first episode

In The Johnny Cash Show’s premiere on June 7, 1969, Cash sang “Folsom Prison Blues,” “The Wall,” and “Greystone Chapel,” and he duetted with his wife on “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” per the IMDb synopsis.

But that episode also featured Bob Dylan — who sang “I Threw it All Away” and “Livin’ the Blues” and joined Cash in a rendition of “Girl from the North Country” — and Joni Mitchell, who sang her hit “Both Sides Now.”

That episode’s other featured performer was Cajun music legend Doug Kershaw, who performed “Diggy, Liggy Lo.”

In subsequent episodes, Johnny and June shared the Ryman Auditorium stage with music stars like Roy Orbison, Merle Haggard, James Taylor, Tammy Wynette, Linda Ronstadt, and Louis Armstrong.

2One episode turned into a surprise This Is Your Life taping

As seen on YouTube, June interrupted a 1971 taping of The Johnny Cash Show to introduce her husband to a “good friend” who had flown out from California. That friend turned out to be This Is Your Life host Ralph Edwards, and the Ryman Auditorium audience rose to their feet in a standing ovation as they realized Johnny was the docuseries’ next honoree.

Guests in that installment of This Is Your Life included Ralph Jones, the Georgia sheriff who had arrested Johnny years earlier, and Ruby Cooley, who taught the singer when he was in grade school, according to a UPI report.

Johnny also got a taped greeting from former Folsom State prisoner and “Greystone Chapel” songwriter Glen Sherley, who was still behind bars at the time. “I hope the kindness you show people is repaid to you, comes back tenfold,” Sherley told the country star.

3The show elevated its host “to the pinnacle of his craft,” according to his official website

The Johnny Cash Show was instrumental for Johnny’s career, according to a biography of the singer-songwriter on his official website. That bio calls the show “a groundbreaking fusion of musical styles, fresh voices and enduring legends that elevated [Johnny] to the pinnacle of his craft.”

Because of that fame, Johnny got to perform at the White House, Carnegie Hall, behind the Iron Curtain, and even in Northern Ireland, “where the combatants in the Troubles temporarily ceased the hostilities to gather together in a Belfast church to hear him sing — albeit from opposite sides of the aisle,” the bio adds. “When he became the biggest selling recording artist on earth, it was an affirmation of his universality.”

Plus, the show also earned Johnny the Television Personality of the Year honor at the 5th Academy of Country Music Awards in 1970, the same awards show at which he was nominated for Entertainer of the Year.

4It was canceled as part of TV’s “rural purge”

The Johnny Cash Show’s ratings fell after its third season premiere, and themed-episode ploys didn’t reverse the trend, as Greg Laurie reported in Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon.

But the death knell for the show, according to Laurie, was the FCC’s implementation of the Prime Time Access Rule, which eliminated a half-hour of the broadcast networks’ schedule each weeknight. ABC canceled The Johnny Cash Show — without even giving a heads-up to its title star, apparently — as one of many rural-themed TV shows that met their demise in what was called the “rural purge.”

5A revival aired in 1976

In 1976, CBS enlisted Johnny for a four-week revival of his variety show, a version titled Johnny Cash and Friends. Along with performances by musicians Roy Clark and Tanya Tucker, the revival also featured comedy bits from Steve Martin and Jim Varney, according to a Paley Center for Media listing. Johnny later hosted Christmas specials between 1976 and 1985, cementing his status as a bankable TV host.