Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

This week’s Classic Americana spotlight artist is Johnny Cash. Born on February 26, 1932, to a family of Arkansas sharecroppers, Johnny Cash grew up to be one of the most significant and influential artists in the history of recorded music. A prolific artist, Cash is said to have written more than one thousand songs, and he is also is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million albums around the world.

But Johnny Cash’s songs weren’t just about commercial performance; he championed various people and causes, such as the hardships of working folks, the rights of Indigenous people, and the lives of the imprisoned, to name just a few.

Cash’s life story is well documented, with many stories centered on his childhood home in Arkansas, to the places he hung his hat in adulthood, from Memphis to California to Nashville. But Johnny Cash also enjoys a place in Minnesota history.

Back in 1969, Johnny Cash performed for the very first time at the Minnesota State Fair. At that point in his career, Cash was already a bona fide star with a vast catalogue of beloved hit songs. As a result, tickets were moving fast for his concert at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand; to say tickets were in demand would be an understatement. The concert took place on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 1969, and the next day, the Minneapolis Star (now the Minnesota Star Tribune) reported a State Fair “publicist said there hadn’t been a night like it since Depression days when a car was given away at every concert” and that “police were called to the grandstand after a bookseller’s booth by a ticket cage was nearly destroyed by the surging crowd trying to get tickets for the show.” The concert would go down in history as the very first time a Grandstand show had sold out to a standing-room-only audience of more than 26,000 people.

As for the concert itself, Johnny Cash was joined onstage by his backing band the Tennessee Three; opening acts were June Carter and the Carter Sisters, and the Statler Brothers. Cash played a 19-song set, including his big hits "I Walk The Line" and "Folsom Prison Blues," plus the Shel Silverstein-penned novelty song, "A Boy Named Sue." Another hit in the set list is Cash’s iconic tune, “Ring of Fire,” which is our Classic Americana pick of the week.

In addition to the 1969 concert, Johnny Cash would go on to perform at the Minnesota State Fair five more times: in 1970, 1976, 1978 and 1980, and on a double-bill with Willie Nelson in 1991.

External Links

Johnny Cash – official site

Minnesota State Fair – official site