8. Carlene CarterCarter Girl

Rick Rubin embraced Johnny Cash when he was floundering without a label. Rick thought this was unthinkable. He started soliciting writers beyond the country community and they did two great, odd, dark records. I wound up writing a song called ‘I Witnessed A Crime’ without knowing that Rick was going in this more contemporary vein. I later discovered it was too mid-’50s; too perfect for old-school Johnny Cash. So it didn’t reach release until it was bootlegged out of the studio and found its way to YouTube.



Rick called me up – I live just walking distance from house-to-house: "Can you come over?" I said, "Well, you still got that old Fender guitar down there? If you let me play it I’ll come on down." He had this stunning Fender Esquire from 1954. I walked down and the door opened up, he ushered me into the living room and sitting on the sofa was Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. I was dumbfounded. So we sat down this close and he said, "I like that song." June started welling up and said, "Ooh, you played the solo just like Luther Perkins." I said, “Well, I’d like you to help me get through it.” We wound up singing it across the table. Little did I know that Rick had hidden microphones, capturing the whole thing.