Johnny Cash?

West of Bathurst.

Oh, shit. That bad, eh ?

Johnny Cash had a weekly TV show that ran 58 episodes from 1969 to 1971.
He featured people like Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, James Taylor, Neil Diamond, Roy Orbison and Louis Armstrong (just 6 months before his death), and did duets with Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt.

It's out on DVD, which I'm sure you can rent on Netflix. A young Stevie Wonder's version of "Heaven Help Us All" will give you goosebumps, and young Tammy Wynette singing "Stand By Your Man" in wildly incongruous futuristic space boots may send chills down your spine.

It was a ground-breaking show, not only for Cash's catholic taste in music, but for his artistic integrity, as evinced when he insisted on keeping referenced to being "stoned" in his version of Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down".

I used to watch that show now and then. It sounds pretty exciting now but we just took it for granted then. Hate to bang on about it, but popular music encompassed a wider range of styles then than it does now. We have more "choice" now but less in common

I think Elvis Presley showed up on the hillbilly charts as they were then called before crossing over.

If Johnny Cash had never been born I don't think C & W would be any different today other than it would be missing Johnny Cash songs.

Thanks for the input chaps, i guess that Mr Cash was some sort of influence, some posters indicate it was very minute or nil, but the general thrust of your posts say about the same thing, it was was not as important as claimed.

Another thing, strauss, I guess it depends exactly what you mean by infuential. As far as changing the music.....probably not so much. C & W would be about the same C & W with or without him, I think. But if you were talking about making it (more) popular and having it exposed to more people, that's probably a different story.