Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan On Film

"Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by him - the greatest of the greats then and now." So said Bob Dylan a few weeks after the passing of the great Johnny Cash on September 12, 2003. In a week that sees the publication of MOJO's special anniversary Johnny Cash issue and the release of Dylan's Another Self Portrait, we thought it only right to celebrate the pair's musical adventures.

Friends since the early '60s, Cash and Dylan were first and foremost fans of each others music, this mutual respect shown in covers such as Cash's 1965 take on It Ain't Me Babe and the trio of Cash songs found on Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes. In his tribute, Dylan remembered hearing Cash's distinctive voice in the mid-'50s: "I Walk the Line played all summer on the radio, and it was different than anything else you had ever heard. The record sounded like a voice from the middle of the earth. It was so powerful and moving. It was profound, and so was the tone of it, every line; deep and rich, awesome and mysterious all at once." Cash, always a committed collector of songs, was a folk aficionado and had been a Dylan convert since 1963's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

In the clips below you'll find a selection of their music captured on film. The majority are taken from the first half of 1969, a time when Cash was heading back to mainstream success with his new TV show and Dylan was continuing to emerge from his post-motorcycle crash exile with a new album of songs called Nashville Skyline. In February, the pair recorded 12 tracks, only one of which (Girl From The North Country) would officially see the light of day.

We begin, however, in 1966 with two outtakes from D.A.Pennebaker's Eat The Document. The two friends are backstage. Dylan is due on in 20 minutes. There's a piano...

I Still Miss Someone

(Eat The Document, 1966)

I'm So Lonesome I'm Could Cry

(Eat The Document, 1966)

One Too Many Mornings

(Nashville Skyline sessions, 1969)

Girl From The North Country

(The Johnny Cash Show, 1969)

I Threw It All Away

(The Johnny Cash Show, 1969)

Bob Dylan Remembers Johnny Cash

(No Direction Home, 2005)