Ghost Town (1988)

 

The Johnny Cash Christmas Show (1977)

    Well, what an unexpected palette cleanser. I’ll admit I was leaning quite heavily on the current conception of Johnny Cash in picking this special, which is equals parts the guy who sang to prison inmates, the guy who drank and popped pills through most of his career (he apparently was in the midst of suffering one of his relapses during this year), and above all the guy who released the “American Recordings” series from 1994 through 2010. The idea was that that guy, ‘the man in black,” kicking around in a variety show format in the late seventies singing Christmas tunes was sure to be a fascinating disaster.

70's aesthetics have a lot to answer for.

    That’s not what we get. What we get is around forty five solid minutes of pretty good old-school country music and early rock and roll with some of the biggest names still around at the time. In addition to the obvious June Carter Cash we get Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, The Statler Brothers, and the previously less familiar to me Roy Clark who steals the entire show right out from under everyone. Upon research it turns out he was the host of ‘Hee Haw’ which I have complicated childhood memories about, but more importantly he seems to have been a ‘musician’s musician’ for country music for decades, and after this special I can see why.

    The special aired on Wednesday November 30^th, 1977. It opens with a shadowy figure twirling to the camera as the lights spring up and Johnny Cash is revealed with a big ol’ shit-eating grin and for a split second I think I’m going to get what I’m expecting. Instead the live crowd starts clapping, he calls out to some family and friends he spots, and he rolls right into a rendition of ‘Christmas Time’s A-Comin’.’ He’s loose and relaxed, and after the song he lowers the mic and whoops out to the crowd “I’m comin’ home, mama!” He grins his way into the opening credits.

Well hello to you too.

    He comes back from the commercial and briefly admits how close it is to Thanksgiving before giving the loose theme of the evening, which is reminiscing about some of the important Christmases of his past. I haven’t read either of his autobiographies so I don’t know how true these stories are and even if they aren’t they add such a loose narrative to the proceedings that it’s hardly important to worry about. He segues this into an introduction of his wife, June Carter Cash.

    And we need to address something right away, June Carter Cash can Get It. She may walk on stage with a late-70’s cascade of hair and a modest, Christmassy dress but she pops on stage with a bit about how much she’s looking forward to her presents and the body language between the two of them makes it very clear that the present they both want is waiting backstage. They sing a duet of ‘Darlin’ Companion’ and they take what was already a fairly overt song and turn it deeply, deeply horny. This is a song with a chorus that starts “Oh, a little saucy mare like you should have a steed / Oh, a little bridling down from you is what I need” and they make it more obviously about banging. I swear there’s a bit where she’s making some kind of motion or gesture and the camera cuts to a reverse shot of the two of them for far longer than necessary where Cash murmurs “Don’t hurt yourself, Mama.” Woof.

June Carter Cash shaking what her mother gave her.

    A commercial break works as a transition to Cash dressed in Air Force fatigues as he tells us how he bought his first guitar from a pawn shop while he was station in Germany one winter which started his musical career. He walks into a barracks set to join The Statler Brothers in a couple of Christmas songs. He’s then on stage with Roy Clark for a couple of numbers and damn it the lines that are meant to be funny are actually funny. This is the first person I’ve seen on any of these specials actually be funny and the man isn’t even a comedian. They do a series of songs in tribute to Gene Autry and fair enough, the man was a pioneer, and between the two of them they do them justice. Do yourself a favor and don’t sleep on Roy Clark.

Damnit, I'm not supposed to like the guy from 'Hee Haw.'

    The next story about Johnny’s past is about his time at Sun Records and although it’s a flimsy way to get some of his label mates on stage I am not going to complain in the least, that period of time at that record label is legendary for a reason. He does one of his own numbers, “Big River,” which to use the parlance of the times just slaps. He brings on Carl Perkins to do “Blue Suede Shoes” and Roy Orbison to do “Oh, Pretty Woman” and I have no complaints.

    Jerry Lee Lewis is also there.

    The camera then cuts to cuts to Cash alone on stage. H name drops a few more Sun Records artists, then seeming a little somber mentions how his first opening performance was for Elvis and how this next number is for him. I was idly wondering if Elvis was asking for too much money to appear before remembering the year of this special. Elvis had died less than three months previously. He’s joined by Perkins, Orbison, and Lewis for a rendition of “This Train is Bound for Glory.”

Of course the evil one's dressed in white.

    Cash’s next Christmas memory and the one he claims is the most important to him is of his first Christmas with June Carter Cash and from the way he says it and how they’ve interacted over the show I can believe it. She comes on along with the rest of the Carter family and the previous guests to sing “Silent Night.” Then Cash briefly discusses a trip to “the holy land” before it cuts to what seem like home movies of a trip to Jerusalem and Bethlehem while everyone sings “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” over the top. The show closes back on stage with everyone singing ‘Children Go Where I Send Thee,” an odd, upbeat variation on “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” A recording of Cash from that trip to Israel closes us out with “Hope you have a nice Christmas, and I’ll see you when we all get home.” Credits roll over the rest of the Jerusalem footage.

70's orange has never been found in nature.

    I really want to be disappointed that this special holds up so well (fashions aside) but I’m genuinely impressed that I warmed to it immediately. At this point I’ve heard these traditional Christmas songs any number of times and they don’t really do anything special with them but Carl Perkins himself slamming out “Blue Suede Shoes” on a Christmas will do very nicely, thank you, and some of the deeper cuts from Cash’s own back catalog have me genuinely interested in him as an artist rather than some guy Rick Rubin picked up and dusted off in the mid-90’s. Maybe I was thrown because Como’s reputation as a bland good guy musician was largely correct, if understanding his charm and warmth, while Cash’s reputation as a legendary fuck-up has rather overshadowed the amount of talent he clearly possessed. I guess there’s a reason we cared that he fucked himself up that badly. I know there are a number of other Christmas specials and going into this I had no intention of examining them but if they’re anything like these I may to to rethink that. I am starting to get a little wary of how easily these older performers are winning me over, although if I get too worried I can always break the glass holding Bob Hope. I’ll take Cash at his worst over Hope at his best any day.

I'm not convinced Perry Como isn't just offscreen shooting his own special.