Whether you hate-watched, love-watched, or ignored last night’s Acad­e­my Awards, you may be tired today of Oscar talk. Take a break, unplug your­self from Face­book and Twit­ter, and trav­el with me back in TV time. It’s June 7th, 1969, and The John­ny Cash Show makes its debut on ABC, recorded—where else?—at the Grand Ole Opry (“I wouldn’t do it any­where but here”). Fea­tur­ing Cash ensem­ble reg­u­lars June Carter, the Carter fam­i­ly, Carl Perkins, the Statler Broth­ers, and the Ten­nessee Three, the musi­cal vari­ety show has a def­i­nite show­biz feel. Even the open­ing cred­its give this impres­sion, with a decid­ed­ly kitschy big band ren­di­tion of “Fol­som Prison Blues.” This seems a far cry from the defi­ant John­ny Cash who gave the world the fin­ger in a pho­to tak­en that same year dur­ing his San Quentin gig (where inmate Mer­le Hag­gard sat in atten­dance).

But show­biz John­ny Cash is still every inch the man in black, with his rough edges and refined musi­cal tastes (in fact, Cash debuted the song “Man in Black” on a lat­er episode). As daugh­ter Rosanne showed us, Cash was a musi­col­o­gist of essen­tial Amer­i­cana. His choice of musi­cal guests for his debut program—Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Cajun fid­dler Doug Ker­shaw—makes plain Cash’s love for folk songcraft. The appear­ance on the Cash show was Kershaw’s big break (two months lat­er his “Louisiana Man” became the first song broad­cast from the moon by the Apol­lo 12 astro­nauts). Mitchell, who plays “Both Sides Now” from her cel­e­brat­ed sec­ond album Clouds, was already a ris­ing star. And Dylan was, well, Dylan. Even if all you know of John­ny Cash comes from the 2005 film Walk the Line, you’ll know he was a huge Dylan admir­er. In the year The John­ny Cash Show debuted, the pair record­ed over a dozen songs togeth­er, one of which, “Girl from the North Coun­try,” appeared on Dylan’s coun­try album Nashville Sky­line. They play the song togeth­er, and Dylan plays that album’s “I Threw it All Away,” one of my all-time favorites.

Ini­tial­ly billed as “a live­ly new way to enjoy the sum­mer!” The John­ny Cash Show had a some­what rocky two-year run, occa­sion­al­ly run­ning afoul of ner­vous net­work exec­u­tives when, for exam­ple, Cash refused to cen­sor the word “stoned” from Kris Kristofferson’s “Sun­day Morn­ing Com­ing Down” and brought on Pete Seeger, despite the furor his anti-war views caused else­where. Ever the icon­o­clast, Cash was also ever the con­sum­mate enter­tain­er. After watch­ing the first episode of his show, you might agree that Cash and friends could have car­ried the hour even with­out his famous guests. Cash opens with a spir­it­ed “Ring of Fire” and also plays “Fol­som Prison Blues,” “The Wall,” and “Grey­stone Chapel.” And above, watch John­ny and June sing a sweet duet of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

John­ny Cash: Singer, Out­law, and, Briefly, Tele­vi­sion Host

John­ny Cash Sings “Man in Black” for the First Time, 1971

Two Prison Con­certs That Defined an Out­law Singer: John­ny Cash at San Quentin and Fol­som (1968–69)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

It’s hard for me to believe that we now live in a post‑R.E.M. world. Also a post-Son­ic Youth world, post-Pix­ies world (as far as I’m con­cerned), etc. The bands of my errant youth are no more; some­times it feels like all I can do is toss out the occa­sion­al, half-heart­ed “get off my lawn” or mum­ble bemus­ed­ly, “what’s a Lorde?” when con­tem­plat­ing the cur­rent state of music.

Yet all is not lost for “aging hipsters”—in the par­lance of the blog Rock Turtle­neck!. Though our pop cul­ture may seem to slip into an irrel­e­vant ice age, we can at least warm our­selves at the flick­er­ing screen, where Youtube caches troves of footage of our bygone heroes—like the video above of R.E.M. play­ing “Radio Free Europe” for their first appear­ance on TV in 1983.

Now, this was before the time of my fan­dom, which dates from the lat­er 80s. Still, it’s always a joy to see one of my all time favorites roar­ing in their lion­heart­ed youth.

The band appeared on Let­ter­man, pro­mot­ing their debut, Mur­mur. The venue is no sur­prise, giv­en Dave’s con­sis­tent cham­pi­oning of instant-clas­sic Amer­i­can artists. But after this appear­ance, they would not return to his show for anoth­er 12 years, this time to play “Crush With Eye­lin­er” in the midst of their 1995 Mon­ster tour (above). I loved R.E.M. no less then, but they were pros by that time, not the scrap­py, jan­g­ly South­ern alt-rock­ers bold­ly chal­leng­ing the ortho­doxy of bloat­ed sta­di­um rock.

I think Rock Turtle­neck! does not over­state its case in claim­ing that the band’s nation­al tele­vi­sion debut “was the col­lege rock equiv­a­lent of The Bea­t­les play­ing the Ed Sul­li­van Show in 1964.” Well, maybe just a lit­tle, but it’s still a piv­otal moment in the his­to­ry of alt-rock. Mur­mur appears as num­ber 1 on this list of the “best albums of 1983”—calculated from “over­all rank­ings in over 13,000 great­est album charts”—followed by oth­er new wave and alter­na­tive clas­sics like the Vio­lent Femmes’s epony­mous debut, The Police’s Syn­chronic­i­ty, U2’s War, Tom Wait’s Sword­fishtrom­bones, and New Order’s Pow­er, Cor­rup­tion and Lies. Sim­pler times, sim­pler times….

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Two Very Ear­ly Con­cert Films of R.E.M., Live in ‘81 and ‘82

R.E.M.’s Final Encore (and an Ear­ly Con­cert from Ger­many)

R.E.M.’s “Los­ing My Reli­gion” Reworked from Minor to Major Scale

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness