FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
Manic Street Preacher: Neil Diamond gets evangelical on ‘The Johnny Cash Show,’ 1970


Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash.
 
One of Brooklyn’s finest, Neil Diamond, was 29 when he joined one of his heroes, 38-year old Johnny Cash on Cash’s short-lived variety program The Johnny Cash Show, which aired on February 7th, 1970.

After leaving Brooklyn for a short stint (Diamond’s father Kieve was in the military), the family ended up in Cheyenne, Wyoming where Neil would discover “singing cowboy” movies, exposing the young Diamond to the genre of country music. Later when the family returned to Brooklyn, Neil’s folks gave him an inexpensive acoustic guitar for his birthday. Diamond was already performing with his high school chorus along with another Brooklyn native, Barbra Streisand. A talented fencer, Diamond’s swordplay (not with Babs) got him a college scholarship where he would enroll as a pre-med student. Though “Dr. Neil Diamond” has a nice ring to it, Diamond, already a rabid songwriter, succumbed to his passion for music and dropped out to make it as a musician.

When Diamond appeared on The Johnny Cash Show, he was basking in the glow of his success as a songwriter and a solo artist. In 1966 he penned the monster hit “I’m a Believer” for The Monkees and also had a smash of his own the same year with “Solitary Man.” Interesting Cash/Diamond side note; 34 years later, Johnny Cash would cover “Solitary Man” on his deeply moving album, American III: Solitary Man. For Cash’s show, Diamond chose to perform a gospel-inspired number called “Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show” from his 1969 album of the same name. The invigorating single irritated evangelical southerners, due to Diamond’s twist of recording and performing it in the style of a proselytizing evangelical preacher. At one point during the three-minute jam, Diamond does, in fact, deliver the song’s lyrics with some preacher-on-the-pulpit fire and brimstone. I’m sure at this point you may be wondering how this went over with Johnny, a religious man to say the least. Well, he loved Diamond and considered him, as we all should, one of the era’s greatest songwriters and performers.

I can’t imagine anyone not being a fan of Neil Diamond, and even if you think you aren’t, just try to NOT sing along to “Sweet Caroline” the next time you hear it. Diamond was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and in January of this year, he announced he would be retiring from touring. This did not stop the 77-year-old Diamond from putting on a special show (which you can see here), this past Saturday for firefighters battling the horrific Lake Christine blaze in Colorado which has been burning for almost four weeks.

I’ve posted footage of Diamond’s appearance on The Johnny Cash Show below which includes a short interview segment between the pair of musical gods. Now, go turn on your heartlight, then turn this one up.
 

Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash chatting on the set of ‘The Johnny Cash Show’ in 1970.
 

Neil Diamond joins Johnny Cash on ‘The Johnny Cash Show.’ The show originally aired on February 7th, 1970.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Thunderball’ opening credits with the theme song that Johnny Cash submitted
How Johnny Cash was nearly killed by an ostrich in 1981
New black tarantula spider species discovered near Folsom Prison is named after Johnny Cash
‘The Pot Smoker’s Song’: Neil Diamond’s terrible anti-weed anthem
Neil Diamond fans, this excellent BBC ‘In Concert’ show from 1971 is a must-see

Posted by Cherrybomb
|
08.01.2018
08:48 am
|
The ‘real’ New York: Gritty scenes of NYC street life, 1970
12.11.2015
08:20 am
Topics:
Tags:

018vergny018.jpg
Avenue C, Lower East Side.
 
The photographer and documentarian Camilo José Vergara uses photographs as “a means of discovery, as a tool with which to clarify visions and construct knowledge about a particular city or place.” Pictures, for Vergara, are the starting point in asking questions or linking to other images or investigating new territories and ideas.

Born in Santiago, Chile in 1944, Vergara started his career as a photographer after he arrived in New York City during the 1960s. He graduated with a B.A. in sociology from the University of Notre Dame, and went on to study an M.A. in sociology at Columbia University. It was while at Columbia that Vergara saw the potential in using photography to document the changes in the city’s urban environment and its influence on social behavior. This eventually led to Vergara’s work in rephotography—literally then and now photography—where he documents one location over a number of years or decades.

In 1970, Vergara began documenting New York street life capturing the children, families and communities living among the city’s urban decay. Vergara’s photographs showed parts of New York that looked like bombed-out war zones, deprived areas suffering the worst of both city and state indifference.

Since this early work in New York, Vergara has documented poor, minority communities in Chicago, Newark, Detroit, Los Angeles and sixteen other cities across the U.S.A. This work has produced an archive of over 14,000 color slides, numerous books, exhibitions and film documentaries. Vergara intends this enormous back catalog to form a basis for The Visual Encyclopedia of the American Ghetto to “visualize how ghettos change over time, understand the nature and meaning of social and economic inequality in urban America.”

For his photographic work, Vergara’s has won a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 2002, the Berlin Prize in 2010 and the National Humanities Medal in 2013. The following is just a small selection of his photographs taken on the streets of New York during 1970.
 
005vergny005.jpg
Girls with Barbies, East Harlem.
 
007vergny007.jpg
Fifth Ave at 110th Street, East Harlem.
 
012vergny012.jpg
South Bronx.
 
010vergny010.jpg
South Bronx.
 
More of Vergara’s powerful photographs from New York 1970, after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
12.11.2015
08:20 am
|
Monster movies: great live footage of ‘The Can’, 1970
12.14.2011
09:32 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Yes, ‘The Can” is the ‘Can’ we all know and love - Holger, Jaki, Michael, Irmin and, in this early 70s incarnation, the iconic Damo Suzuki. Here is a clip of the band performing the title track of the Roland Klick film ‘Deadlock’ in 1970 on Germany’s Westdeutscher Rundfunk television station.

When I first stumbled upon this clip, I assumed the TV producers had made an amusing mistake by adding an unwanted definitive article to the start of the band’s name. However, after checking the Can wiki page, it turns out that the additional “The” may not have been a mistake after all:

[By 1968] the band used the names “Inner Space” and “The Can” before finally settling on “CAN”. Liebezeit subsequently suggested the backronym “communism, anarchism, nihilism” for the band’s name. [Wow, what an amazing backronym!]

However, by the time this footage was recorded in 1970 the band had already released two records as ‘Can’ - Monster Movies and Soundtracks, which mostly featured Malcolm Mooney on vocals rather than Suzuki. So I think a little chortle can be had without feeling too foolish, but who knows, maybe it was a genuine mistake or maybe the bad flirted with a new name for a new singer? Either way, if it’s ‘The Can’ or just plain old ‘Can’ this is some great early footage of true musical pioneers: 

The Can “Deadlock” live 1970
 

 
After the jump, the awesome ‘Mother Sky’ from the same session…

READ ON
Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
|
12.14.2011
09:32 pm
|
Listen to 10 Seconds from Every Hit Song of the ‘70s
11.10.2011
05:24 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
Nat Roe of WFMU has uploaded 10 seconds of every hit song from the ‘70s on SoundCloud. Holy cow, Nat! That’s a lot of hard work and serious dedication. He says he’s going to tackle the ‘80s in the next few weeks. I can’t wait for that one! 

Go to WFMU to hear every hit from the 50s and 60s

1970

 

1971

 

1972

 
Listen to the rest after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Tara McGinley
|
11.10.2011
05:24 pm
|
Kraftwerk - Early Footage
11.04.2010
05:58 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Kraftwerk before Autobahn.
 

 
Bonus clips of early Kraftwerk in performance after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
11.04.2010
05:58 pm
|
‘An Hour With Pink Floyd’: Live TV Performance, 1970
10.10.2010
02:20 am
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
1970 Pink Floyd performance for San Francisco public TV Station KQED.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
|
10.10.2010
02:20 am
|