Johnny Cash And Elvis Presley Together: I dont believe Ive ever seen this before

mpayan · Feb 20, 2021

Maybe this is well known but I certainly have never seen it before and I watch around quite a bit for these tid bits of footage..pretty cool I thought. Amazing how young Elvis looks compared to Johnny here. Johnny was sure rough on himself. Anyway, pretty cool vid I thought...

EdgardV · Feb 20, 2021

And here, impersonating one another.

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mpayan · Feb 20, 2021

EdgardV said: ↑

And here, impersonating one another.

.
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Lol cool. I had seen the Johnny bit but hadnt heard the Elvis does Cash one.

Did Elvis or Johnny ever have any stories about their time together? I dont recall any.

EdgardV · Feb 20, 2021

mpayan said: ↑

Lol cool. I had seen the Johnny bit but hadnt heard the Elvis does Cash one.

Did Elvis or Johnny ever have any stories about their time together? I dont recall any.
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Don't know. While I like some of both artists work, you introduced me to this pairing! I just happened across this video when looking at yours. Laugh out loud.

BeatleJWOL · Feb 20, 2021

mpayan said: ↑

Did Elvis or Johnny ever have any stories about their time together? I dont recall any.
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There's this excerpt from "Cash : The Autobiography"

Elvis was already making noise in Memphis when I got there in '54. Sam Phillips had released his first single, That's All Right, Mama, with Blue Moon of Kentucky on the 'B' side, and it was tearing up the airwaves.
The first time I saw Elvis, singing from a flatbed truck at a Katz drugstore opening on Lamar Avenue, two or three hundred people, mostly teenage girls, had come out to see him. With just one single to his credit, he sang those two songs over and over. That's the first time I met him. Vivian and I went up to him after the show, and he invited us to his next date at the Eagle's Nest, a club promoted by Sleepy-Eyed John, the disc jockey who'd taken his name from the Merle Travis song and was just as important as Dewey Phillips in getting Sun music out to the world.

I remember Elvis' show at the Eagle's Nest as if were yesterday. The date was a blunder, because the place was an adult club where teenagers weren't welcome, and so Vivian and I were two of only a dozen or so patrons, fifteen at the most. All the same, I thought Elvis was great. He sang That's All Right, Mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky once again (and again) plus some black blues songs and a few numbers like Long Tall Sally, and he didn't say much. He didn't have to, of course; his charisma alone kept everyone's attention. The thing I really noticed that night, though, was his guitar playing. Elvis was a fabulous rhythm player. He'd start into That's All Right, Mama with his own guitar alone, and you didn't want to hear anything else. I didn't anyway. I was disappointed when Scotty Moore and Bill Black jumped in and covered him up. Not that Scotty and Bill weren't perfect for him - the way he sounded with them that night was what I think of as seminal Presley, the sound I missed through all the years after he became so popular and made records full of orchestration and overproduction. I loved that clean, simple combination of Scotty, Bill, and Elvis with his acoustic guitar. You know, I've never heard or read anyone else praising Elvis as a rhythm guitar player, and after the Sun days I never heard his own guitar on his records.

That night at the Eagle's Nest, I remember, he was playing a Martin and he was dressed in the latest teen fashion. I think his shirt came from the National Shirt Shop, where you could get something loud and flashy or something in a good rich black for $3.98 (I did), but perhaps by then he'd started shopping at Lansky Brothers. If he hadn't, it wasn't long before he did. I was in there myself two or three times in '55 and '56.

Elvis and I talked about music, but I never spoke to him about Sun Records or any other connection into the music business. I wanted to make it on my own devices, and that's how I set about doing it.

Elvis certainly took a lot of abuse from that crowd. He had his problems with gossip, too, and rumor and lies. He was very sensitive, easily hurt by the stories people told about him being on dope and so on. I myself couldn't understand why people wanted to say that back in the '50s, because in those days he was the last person on earth who needed dope. He had such a high energy level that it seemed he never stopped - though maybe that's why they said he was on dope. Either way, he wasn't, or at least I never saw any evidence of it. I never saw him use any kind of drug, or even alcohol; he was always clear-headed around me, and very pleasant. Elvis was such a nice guy, and so talented and charismatic - he had it all - that some people just couldn't handle it and reacted with jealousy. It's only human, I suppose, but it's sad.

He and I liked each other, but we weren't that tight - I was older than he was, for one thing, and married, for another - and we weren't close at all in his later years. I took the hint when he closed his world around him; I didn't try to invade his privacy. I'm so glad I didn't, either, because so many of his old friends were embarrassed so badly when they were turned away at Graceland. In the '60s and '70s he and I chatted on the phone a couple of times and swapped notes now and again. If he were closing at the Las Vegas Hilton as I was getting ready to open, he'd wish me luck, that kind of thing - but that was about the extent of it.

I've heard it said that here at the end of the century, we all have our own Elvis, and I can appreciate that idea, even though my Elvis was my friend, flesh and blood in real life. Certainly, though, my Elvis was the Elvis of the '50s. He was a kid when I worked with him. He was nineteen years old, and he loved cheeseburgers, girls, and his mother, not necessarily in that order (it was more like his mother, then girls, then cheeseburgers).

Personally, I liked cheeseburgers and I had nothing against his mother, but the girls were the thing. He had so many girls after him that whenever he was working with us, there were always plenty left over. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun in general, not just with the girls. It was nice that we could make a living at it, but every one of us would have done it for free. And you know, Elvis was so good. Every show I did with him, I never missed the chance to stand in the wings and watch. We all did. He was that charismatic.
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More on the Elvis Australia site: Johnny Cash Remembers Elvis Presley | Elvis Articles

BeatleJWOL · Feb 20, 2021

Small mention here that Elvis was a big Cash fan:

"Elvis had been raving about what a great singer Johnny Cash was," June says.
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Johnny Cash: 'I was evil. I really was' – a classic interview from the vaults

BeatleJWOL · Feb 20, 2021

And this...

mpayan · Feb 20, 2021

Its interesting that Johnny talks about how he was impressed with Elvis' rhythm guitar playing. Obvious statement I guess, but that may be one thing is kind of overlooked about Elvis. His impeccable sense of rhythm. Im sure the rhythm guitar came very natural to him. Im a pretty good picker, but man rhythm guitar for me is anything but natural. Lennon was like that also I think, he just had that natural sense.

John B Good · Feb 23, 2021

Don't suppose anyone who can read lips got anything from the 39 second clip. That DJ Jerry, he talks at 16 RPM

Is he just being facetious when he refers to Carl Perkins?

minkahed · Apr 3, 2021

This is so weird.

While that footage up top is extremely rare, but not so much anymore within the current Elvis world, as many have seen it on the FECC message board and the Phoenix board.

It's a gorgeous piece of film and that segment with Elvis dancing is priceless, besides looking absolutely beautiful.

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