Johnny Cash Gets Animated in Newly Uncovered Interview
It says a lot about the state of music today that the two biggest names in music in the last couple of months have been Kurt Cobain and Johnny Cash. Cash, who passed away in 2003, recently crowned the country music charts once again at #1 with his posthumous, lost album release Out Among The Stars, and came in at #3 in all of music.
Amidst the renewed attention for Johnny and his music, the PBS series Blank on Blank has brought the Man in Black back alive in an animated interview. The 6-minute conversation originally recorded in October of 1996 with British journalist Barney Hoskyns is not just your average Q&A with Cash. Sensing the gravity and character that Johnny exudes in the segment inspired PBS to do something a little more special before releasing it to the public.
Cash is caught speaking so candidly about himself that it makes him feel alive again, and animator Patrick Smith does a tasteful, and accurate representation of the type of spirit Johnny Cash was that it gives you chills to listen, and watch. Cash delves into a litany of personal narratives in the interview, from his work on the Johnny Cash show with performers like The Who, to drugs and addiction, God and religion, to dressing in black and his Sun Studios buddy Elvis Presley.
These 6 minutes, and the revelation that there’s still much archived Johnny Cash audio still to be heard, spells out that even a decade after his passing, Johnny Cash’s legacy is still very much alive and well among us.
April 8, 2014 @ 1:16 pm
Very cool.
April 8, 2014 @ 2:08 pm
Excellent.
April 8, 2014 @ 2:17 pm
This is so cool! They really did a great job of portraying the feeling of the interview.
Thank you Trigger for sharing this incredible find. Now I need to go and watch some of the other ones.
April 8, 2014 @ 3:03 pm
I love this! I read his Autobiography too and it was a very compelling read. Honest and witty and filled with the good times and the bad. The drug addiction and the sobering up. His days with Elvis, meeting June for the first time. His deep faith, living in Jamaica, and all sorts of other tales that only Johnny could tell. I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Cash-The-Autobiography-Johnny/dp/0060727535
April 8, 2014 @ 4:58 pm
Freakin’ awesome!
April 8, 2014 @ 7:25 pm
This is wonderful! As a visual artist, I can only imagine how thrilled the animator was to create this. Thanks for posting, Trigger!
April 9, 2014 @ 8:57 am
Definitely adds something to the interview, in a way, but not a fan of the artistic license that was taken. At all. Ugh! I assume the estate had no approval authority on this.
If I die famous, don’t do me like that.
1/64th of a Gun Up