Sometimes concert hounds have more fun.
I was buying a ticket at the Bottom Line (no credit card, no phone -cash in person only) in June 1999 when the guy behind the box office wised me up that tix for June Cash Carter had just gone on sell… did I want to?
Darn tootin'. Press On had just been released and I loved it but I would. I was an old time carter Family fan, not to mention Johnny Cash fan. And I'd seen June several times, earlier that year at Carnegie Hall singing with her husband in a Cash family get together.
She was good that night, but Roseanne Cash singing "I Still Miss Someone" was the highlight.
It is difficult to step out from Johnny's shadow and June , for all her abilities, many, many abilities (I am listening to a recording of her as a child killing on "Oh Susannah" as I write), had difficultie doing so.
But then in 1999 she released Press On, and a couple of years "Wildflower". It was to push Press that brought June to the Bottom Line (a terrific club, much missed) on July 1st, 1999 for what would be a career retrospective with John Junior leading the band, and June more than ready to tell stories.
The band was a superb little country number, June in fine voice and finer spirits. Sharing songs . Telling stories. Stories like what a good country boy Elvis Presley was, closing down Disneyworld to take her on a date. Stories about studying acting with Marlon Brando (who she also dated…).
And singing stuff off Press On. "Tiffany Anastasia Lowe" for her Granddaughter -Nick and Carlene's kid. "Gatsby's restaurant". Also "Ring Of Fire", "Will The Circle be Unbroken". A coupla songs with Johnny. Fine stuff, funny, easy going, that lack of pretension we expect from country stars. Making fun with her son, casual but concentrated. A really excellent set.
The thing is the Bottom Line was an intimate room any way and as June got older her skills got both tougher and simpler, there was an ease and gracefulness to her songs at this date, though she wans't prolific they felt like a window to her soul. The concert had a feeling of friends playing together, of truths being told and memories connected.
June Carter Cash died in 1974, her husband four months later. People are irreplaceable.
No, not 1974