“Everybody always asks me what’s the most important thing my parents ever taught me…Persistence! In the face of struggle and hardship, you continue on. My dad stuck with it, he kept making music. My mother did too.“
The parents John Carter Cash speaks of are, of course, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, both American icons and legends of country music. Their 35-year marriage, as well as their huge musical legacy, is explored and celebrated in the stage musical The Ballad of Johnny & June, which arrives in Southampton this September.
The show packs a plentiful supply of Cash’s best-known songs, including I Walk the Line, A Boy Named Sue, Folsom Prison Blues, Hey Porter, and Ring of Fire. These iconic songs, and Johnny and June’s famous love story, are brought to life on stage by the talented cast, led by musical theatre stars Christopher Ryan as Johnny and Christina Bianco as June.
John Carter Cash had been contemplating this project for a decade when the stars finally aligned and he met Producer/Director/Writer Des McAnuff, whose glittering career includes Jersey Boys. What especially recommended him to John was his work on Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “I knew he was the right person, because it was my father’s favourite play, and I just felt it was the right choice.”
And so it proved. “It really is something I believe in. I think the song choices are neat because the hits are there, but there are also songs that really tell the full arc of my parents’ lives. I think it’s a wonderful production.”
John’s own contributions to the show have been invaluable, bringing vital insights and emotional truths to a story which, as Johnny and June’s only child, he is uniquely familiar with. He impressed McAnuff in the way he wanted to convey some tough realities, rather than airbrushed fantasies.
The script for the musical was written by McAnuff and Robert Cary (Flashdance), based on a string of in-depth conversations with John.
“I sat down with Des and Robert for numerous hours where they dug deep into my life and my memories, and really looked into my experiences. It wasn’t like any other creative process that I’ve ever done. And then they would go ‘right’, and we’d come back and do it again, until they said ‘we want your character to tell the story’. They’d heard me relate the story to them so many times that they felt that the man who plays me should be the guide for the entire musical.”
Ryan O’Donnell takes on the role of John Carter Cash, breaking the fourth wall with the audience and acting as narrator throughout the show.
Most of the things you see are tied in with my personal memories, and the way the characters speak is straight out of my mouth. So, in essence, I did write a lot of them – it’s just editing it in the right way.
Following in parental footsteps, John started out as a musician and songwriter, and still remembers how his father introduced him to Bob Dylan’s music when he was 12 years old.
“He bought me cassettes of the first three Bob Dylan albums, and I sat in my room at their apartment in New York City and listened to them all the way through. That was when it was just Bob with his harmonica and guitar. My dad said ‘don’t listen to that rock ‘n’ roll stuff that Bob did later, listen to the early ones'”
Later, John became prolific as a record producer. As well as working with a string of prestigious artists – including Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson – he produced his mother’s albums Press On and Wildwood Flower, and worked on four of his father’s. “I’d never produced before when I started working with my dad and my mother in the studio, and that’s really where I learned how to make music, working with them.”
After his parents had died, within just a few months of each other in 2003, he took a conscious decision to embrace his experiences of being a part of the Carter Cash dynasty, rather than pursuing a separate career which would take him away from the family legacy.
Part of this involved facing up to the realities of how both his parents suffered from debilitating addictions. During their lifetimes, both of them were willing to discuss their problems, believing that their example could help people in their audience struggling with similar issues.
Getting to grips with his family history has been a huge undertaking for John, and he describes it as “an ongoing catharsis. If I had a master’s or a doctorate in something, it would be Johnny Cash and the Carter family. I’ve studied it my whole life.”
Much of what he has learned has found its way onto the stage, and he’s keen to stress that despite the enormous presence of Johnny, it’s not a one-man show.
“This musical is as much about my mom as it is about my dad. It shows my mother’s strengths. It shows where she faltered. But it also shows the beauty that they had in their love and their relationship.”
The Ballad of Johnny & June
8 – 12 September 2026 | Mayflower Theatre