The Ghost of Johnny Cash: Part 1

Never-before-seen footage from Todd Snider’s first session at Cash Cabin Studio

Todd Snider sitting at the table in the kitchen at Cash Cabin Studio on the night of his first session there in January 2016. Photographer Stacie Huckeba told The Snider Files, “Of 30 years of pictures, you asked for a shot at that table, and you had it in 30 seconds. That picture made me feel something.” (Photo by Stacie Huckeba)

By Daryl Sanders

When Todd Snider released Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3, in 2019, a lot of people wondered where the first two volumes were. Some may have assumed Snider was making a joke, as he often has been known to do, but when he named his solo acoustic album Vol. 3, it was because those recordings came from what he considered to be his third set of sessions at Cash Cabin Studio, Johnny Cash’s recording studio now owned by his son, John Carter Cash.

Snider’s whole Cash Cabin era began in the fall of 2015 when Loretta Lynn invited him to the studio for a recording session where she would be cutting the basic tracks on a pair of songs they co-wrote. One of the songs, “Everything It Takes,” was a duet with Elvis Costello included on her 2016 album Full Circle.