FEBRUARY 17th - Cash and Dylan. Dylan and Cash.



On this day in 1969, two of the greatest singer-songwriters in history began a two-day recording session in Nashville, the fruit of which was over a dozen duets. Only “The Girl From the North Country” was ever officially released on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. Can you imagine that? Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash farting around in a studio, recording a bunch of songs, and then being like, “let’s not release these.” How rock n’ roll is that? The songs are all readily available now as bootlegs, but still. If they had released them as an album? Instant classic. Millions sold. But nah. They didn’t do that. I haven’t researched exactly why they didn’t, though I’m sure somebody has written about it. But in my head it’s one of the coolest things ever. Just letting these wonderful collaborations grow in mythical stature and spread by diehards who got their hands on them. I’m not one who gets blindly nostalgic about the past. People always tend to focus on how great things were while conveniently forgetting that things were pretty damn awful for a whole mess of people. But it’s things like this that make me understand the sentiment. It’s hard to imagine two singers of similar stature (similar, because you can’t really touch Cash and Dylan) not capitalizing on the chance at an instant hit album. But perhaps there are some. I could see somebody like Dave Grohl doing it. Kendrick Lamar maybe. But more than waxing poetic about how music was more pure back in the day, I really just wonder how awesome it would have been to be in that studio seeing two geniuses at work. Cash and Dylan. Dylan and Cash. Hard to get better than that.

This Day has been Marked.

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