It was a celebration fit only for an icon… That is Johnny Cash, of course.
Over thirty musicians joined forces Sunday night (November 10) to honor the music legend ahead of the premiere of the YouTube Originals documentary The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash.
The first annual Cash Fest featured performances by Little Big Town, Midland, Elle King, Dennis Quiad, Morgan Wallen, Cam Williams, Kassi Ashton, and Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show — just to name a few. Each put their own spin on classic Cash songs or covers.
John Carter Cash even took to the stage with wife Ana Cristina Cash to perform his late father’s “Get Rhythm.”
“What is the legacy of Johnny Cash?” Carter Cash asked the audience to kick off the evening. “It’s poetry in your heart that you hear, that you feel. It’s the continuance of country music. People aspiring to be like my father. You know, maybe you want to think like Bob Dylan, but you want to be Johnny Cash. He established this lasting legacy based on his kindness, based on who he was as a human being, and based on the way that he loved in life.”
The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash was created with the full cooperation of the Cash estate and rich in recently discovered archival materials, brings Cash the man out from behind the legend. Taking the remarkable Folsom Prison recording as a central motif and featuring interviews with family and celebrated collaborators, the 90-minute documentary from Emmy Award-winning director Thom Zimny (Elvis Presley: The Searcher, Springsteen on Broadway) explores the artistic victories, the personal tragedies, the struggles with addiction, and the spiritual pursuits that colored Johnny Cash‘s life.
“The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash” is available now on YouTube. Listen to the voice of Cash himself as he tells his own story.