Johnny Cash & His Bandmates Once Released 500 Baby Chickens On Five Different Floors Of Their Hotel

That had to be fun to clean up... Of all the wild stories we've heard about the country icon Johnny Cash , this is at the top of the list of "most outlandish" stunts he ever pulled. In 1954, after serving in the Air Force during the Korean War, Cash was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant returned to Texas. He married his first wife Vivian in San Antonio, and not long after, they moved to Memphis, Tennessee so he could start his music career. Eventually, Cash formed a band with Marshall Grant and Luther Perkins called the Tennessee Three, and they toured the country trying to make a name for themselves. It didn't take long before he had radio hits like "I Walk the Line," which went #1 in 1956, and the rest, as they say, is history. But even though he was having some success in his professional career, Cash and his band still had their share of fun out on the road... According to Rolling Stone , the Man in Black, along with Grant and Perkins, loved to "flush lit cherry bombs down hotel toilets and toss television sets out of hotel windows" on the regular as entertainment. But one of the wildest road stories I've ever heard was when, also reported by Rolling Stone , the band was in Omaha, Nebraska, and decided to go and purchase 500 baby chickens at a local hatchery, and let them loose on the five different floors of their hotels. Not only does that sound expensive, but had to be an incredible annoyance for all of the guests and staff there too. I have to imagine drugs and alcohol likely played a part in this debauchery, and I'd love to hear from someone who witnessed it what it was like to see 500 baby chicks wandering around in a hotel. I guess that's just part of earning the "outlaw" reputation... Years later in 1984, Johnny Cash would release a song titled "The Chicken In Black," which really has nothing to do with his hotel stunt, but it's a wild song nonetheless. In fact, Johnny came to hate the song, and later called it "intentionally atrocious." https://twitter.com/BadSpit/status/1807172196285984813

Posthumous Unearthed Album, ‘Songwriter’

A couple weeks ago, the Johnny Cash estate released a new (to us) album from the Man in Black called Songwriter , which is a collection of songs solely written by Cash that were recorded in 1993 but never released. On July 15th, 1986, Cash was dropped from his label home of 26 years, Columbia Records, which is where he essentially became the legend we know and love today. From there, he signed with Mercury, where he stayed from ’86 until 1991 when they parted ways, too. And for a couple years in the early 90’s, Cash was actually without a label at all. He ultimately signed to Rick Rubin’s label, American, but during those couple years where he was an independent artist, Cash recorded quite a few demos of his own of songs he wrote completely by himself at Nashville’s LSI Studios. But when he signed with Rubin, those tunes got pushed to the side and never saw the light of day. Cash’s son John Carter Cash recently rediscovered the stripped-back tapes, which were essentially just Cash singing with an acoustic guitar, and wanted to finish them and get them out to fans. John Carter Cash co-produced the finished album with Cash’s longtime engineer David “Fergie” Ferguson, and they stripped the demos back to just his father's vocals, re-recording the songs with a very talented group of musicians including Marty Stuart, Dan Auerbach, Vince Gill, and more. All of the songs are incredible, and exactly the kind of music we've all come to know and love from the country icon in terms of the gruff vocal delivery and songs that cut to the heart of the human experience in a way only Johnny Cash can. From love songs to humorous tunes and even two that feature his friend and fellow Highwaymen member Waylon Jennings (who we can also expect never-before-heard music from next year ) on background vocals on “I Love You Tonite” and “Like a Soldier,” it's simply spectacular. And obviously, it's incredibly cool, for lack of a better word, to hear this capsule of music and moment in time that is as timeless now as it was in the 90's. Every single song truly makes you feel like you're stepping back in time , and you'll definitely want to sit and stay a while. I've listed a few of my early favorites below, but it goes without saying that the entire Songwriter record is well-worth your time to check out. The legend lives on, but then again, legends never really die and Johnny Cash is as great as he ever was on Songwriter. "I Love You Tonite" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHaRsPDyH-s&list=OLAK5uy_lJqqaAUVBqDJQ-uu_rCJAp-Vk7FRkXTQU&index=4 "She Sang 'Sweet Baby James'" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s27m8_CXArY "Poor Valley Girl" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBjeERa18x4 "Like A Soldier" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l9fNNOkfFI Songwriter Tracklist: 1. Hello Out There 2. Spotlight (feat. Dan Auerbach) 3. Drive On 4. I Love You Tonite (feat. Waylon Jennings) 5. Have You Ever Been to Little Rock? 6. Well Alright 7. She Sang Sweet Baby James 8. Poor Valley Girl (feat. Vince Gill) 9. Soldier Boy 10.Sing It Pretty Sue 11. Like a Soldier (feat. Waylon Jennings)