What a story.
This week, iconic 90’s country duo Brooks & Dunn appeared on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, and they had a great conversation, ranging from their country careers, their forthcoming Reboot album, to Theo eating an owl.
Honestly, they all had a natural chemistry and were really great together, and Theo of course had to ask about their friendship with the late, great Johnny Cash.
Ronnie explained that his wife’s former husband, who passed away before they met, knew the Cashes well and she became close with them too. So when she started dating Ronnie, Janine wanted him to get to know them and they spent a weekend at Johnny and June’s house.
Ronnie admitted he was nervous, because it almost felt like going to meet your girlfriend’s parents in high school, and he knew June had already cautioned Janine about getting with an artist. This was before Brooks & Dunn really took off too, so she was very skeptical and protective, naturally.
On the first day they got there, June took Janine shopping right away, and Ronnie was left alone in the house with Johnny, who was very quiet and shy when he first met someone knew. Ronnie says they went and sat on two black recliners and watched the news.
Ronnie called it the longest day of his life, and things only got more interesting from that first day. It turns out, Johnny was home on this weekend because he was furloughed from rehab, and Theo had a hilarious response to that:
“How long do you have to be in rehab to get furloughed? I thought that was a military thing. Only Johnny Cash would’ve went to boot camp for rehab…”
Yeah I didn’t know that was a thing either, but the day before Ronnie and Janine were set to leave, Johnny came down with the flu… and June wasn’t having it:
“All of a sudden at the end, the day before he was supposed to go back, this was a Saturday he was supposed to go back on Sunday, he comes down with the flu. June’s having no part of that. She’s completely like, ‘No, we’re done.’
So she wouldn’t talk to him, and we’re caught in the middle of that, and I’m like, ‘Can we go home now?’ [Janine’s] like ‘No, no no, not yet.’
June goes to Janine, she goes, ‘Y’all have to drive him to the hospital. Take him to the hospital over there in Hendersonville, just see what’s wrong with him. I’m not talking to him, he can walk as far as I’m concerned.’
Okay, we got it.”
Spoken like a true southern lady… so of course Ronnie, Janine and Johnny go to get in the car, and Johnny wants to drive, so they let him.
You can imagine how that went…
“We get in the car, we start to get in the car, John wants to drive, okay? So John drives, it was like pedal to the metal, boom, all the way. We get to the hospital, and they roll him in a wheelchair, and Janine goes up to the desk to give them all the information.
They take John back, he’s there maybe an hour. And we come back, and he goes up to his room, his hospital room at the house, he’s playing it up, man. He’s like, ‘I can’t go back.’ She said, ‘You’re going back to rehab.’ June goes, ‘Well, how’d it go Janine?'”
And I wasn’t ready for her answer… you can’t make stuff like this up:
“Janine goes, ‘Well, they asked for his doctor.’ And June goes, ‘Oh hun, he’s in rehab.’
The doctor was in rehab. I said, ‘Okay, we can go now right?’ She goes, ‘Pretty soon.’ That’s my first Johnny Cash and June Carter experience.”
And what an experience it was, especially considering that he’d never met them before, June didn’t seem too keen on him (at first), and Johnny was one of his musical heroes.
You absolutely have to hear the whole thing for yourself, it’s one of the best stories I’ve ever heard:
