Johnny Cash with June Carter Cash - Irving Plaza, New York City, 7-9-1996

In my opinion, there are two Johnny Cash concert recordings from the later half of his career that tower above all others. I posted one of them here already, of him in Austin, Texas, in 1994. This is the other one. Although it's a bootleg, it's from a radio broadcast and sounds as good as an official album. There are no official albums from his 1990s career revival. If you're a fan of his music at all, you really should get this one. Since it comes from the very end of his touring years, it serves as a good career retrospective.

In 1994, Cash put out the "American Recordings" album, which marked the start of his late career revival. He followed that up with the "Unchained" album in 1996. The Austin concert I mentioned above featured many songs from "American Recordings." This concert only included one song from that. But it has a middle section with six songs in a row that all come from "Unchained." I really like that, because while he put out a handful of excellent albums in the years before he died in 2003, he effectively stopped touring after supporting "Unchained" in 1996 and 1997. He only made some short appearances where he played older hits. So this is the best example of him playing any songs he recorded in his last years.

Aside from that stretch of "Unchained" songs, the rest of the concert has the standard Johnny Cash hits set list. But he was still in good shape in 1996, vocally and energetically. There's a long stretch near the end of the show where his wife June Carter Cash plays some songs with him and some by herself. She plays so much that I've added her to the billing.

Johnny Cash talks some between songs, though not nearly as much as he did during the Austin show. He mostly comments on his new songs. His wife was much more talkative when she was on stage. I didn't have to make many sonic adjustments since this sounded excellent already, but I broke the talking into separate tracks, and sometimes boosted the volume when the talking grew faint.

01 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
02 Get Rhythm (Johnny Cash)
03 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
04 [Ghost] Riders in the Sky (Johnny Cash)
05 A Cowboy's Prayer - Oh, Bury Me Not (Johnny Cash)
06 talk (Johnny Cash)
07 I Never Picked Cotton (Johnny Cash)
08 talk (Johnny Cash)
09 Unchained (Johnny Cash)
10 Rowboat (Johnny Cash)
11 talk (Johnny Cash)
12 Rusty Cage (Johnny Cash)
13 talk (Johnny Cash)
14 Southern Accents (Johnny Cash)
15 Memories Are Made of This (Johnny Cash)
16 talk (Johnny Cash)
17 Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
18 talk (Johnny Cash)
19 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash)
20 talk (Johnny Cash)
21 Jesus in My Soul (Earl Ball with Johnny Cash)
22 talk (Johnny Cash)
23 Jackson (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
24 If I Were a Carpenter (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
25 talk (June Carter Cash)
26 Wabash Cannonball (June Carter Cash)
27 talk (June Carter Cash)
28 Wildwood Flower (June Carter Cash)
29 talk (June Carter Cash)
30 I Used to Be Somebody (June Carter Cash)
31 talk (June Carter Cash)
32 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (June Carter Cash)
33 Big River (Johnny Cash)
34 I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash)
35 Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash)
36 I'll Be Waiting (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)

https://www.imagenetz.de/kx4Zz

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WLW5LcGm

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nJ9C9RuVyo7g6jB/file 

I couldn't find any photos of Cash at this exact concert. But I did find a good one of him playing at the House of Blues in 1996, so I used that. Tom Petty was standing to his side, but I had to crop him out of the photo since he wasn't part of this concert. I hope whatever live recordings there are of Cash and Petty playing together get officially released someday.

Johnny Cash - Frank Ervin Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 12-8-1994

I haven't posted a lot of Johnny Cash music here, because there are a zillion official albums. But, surprisingly, there are some gaps. One of the biggest, in my opinion, is that Cash's career was reborn in 1994 with the acclaimed "American Recordings" album, and all the albums for the rest of his life were strong. But there are no official live albums from that time period. Luckily, there are two excellent soundboard bootlegs from that time, one from 1994 and one from 1996. Here's the 1994 one.

The song selection is very good, in my opinion. Basically, he played a handful of songs from the all-acoustic "American Recordings" album. He played these an a couple more in solo acoustic format, mostly in the middle of the show. But a lot more of the show featured him playing the most famous songs from earlier in his career in a band format. It's about an hour and forty minutes long.

The sound quality is excellent, as good as you'd expect an official live album to be. But there was one problem. Since this came from a soundboard recording, it picked up what happened on stage perfectly well, but didn't record much crowd noise. It's strange to hear a song end to near silence. So after each song, I took what little crowd noise there was and carefully boosted it so the rise and fall in volume wouldn't be obvious. Sometimes, I had to take some crowd noise from the end of a different song and mix it in to make sure there was enough crowd response.

If you want just one Johnny Cash concert recording that's a good overview of his entire career, this is about as good as it gets. (He survived until 2003, but he only made a few guest appearances on stage after 1997.)

01 Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
02 Get Rhythm (Johnny Cash)
03 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
04 [Ghost] Riders in the Sky (Johnny Cash)
05 talk (Johnny Cash)
06 A Cowboy's Prayer (Johnny Cash)
07 Oh, Bury Me Not (Johnny Cash)
08 Big River (Johnny Cash)
09 talk (Johnny Cash)
10 I Walk the Line (Johnny Cash)
11 I Still Miss Someone (Johnny Cash)
12 Man in Black (Johnny Cash)
13 Remember the Alamo (Johnny Cash)
14 Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash)
15 talk (Johnny Cash)
16 Death and Hell (Johnny Cash)
17 talk (Johnny Cash)
18 Delia's Gone (Johnny Cash)
19 Bird on the Wire (Johnny Cash)
20 talk (Johnny Cash)
21 The Beast in Me (Johnny Cash)
22 Tennessee Stud (Johnny Cash)
23 talk (Johnny Cash)
24 Down There by the Train (Johnny Cash)
25 Drive On (Johnny Cash)
26 talk (Johnny Cash)
27 Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
28 talk (Johnny Cash)
29 Jackson (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
30 If I Were a Carpenter (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
31 talk (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
32 It Ain't Me, Babe (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
33 talk (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
34 Live Forever (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
35 talk (Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash)
36 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash & Rosie Carter)
37 The Next Time in Town (Johnny Cash)
38 Guess Things Happen that Way (Johnny Cash)
39 The Ballad of Ira Hayes (Johnny Cash)
40 Home of the Blues (Johnny Cash)
41 Long Black Veil (Johnny Cash)
42 A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
43 Peace in the Valley (Johnny Cash)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gxTKo

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4FpSJL3W

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/YCLQMqCF9zcCjP4/file 

I couldn't find a photo of Cash at the concert in question. But I found one of him played the SXSW festival in Austin Texas earlier in the year. I used that, since at least it's the same town. I tried to imitate the style of his official albums from 1994 and after with the giant "CASH" text, and no first name, on the cover.