Many artists simply had no idea how much sweat went into guaranteeing promotion that went off without a hitch. And that was exactly Saul’s specialty: a smooth, seamless experience that appeared effortless. Despite his better judgment, the complaints and hairsplitting felt like ingratitude.
“You’re just like the rest of them,” he snapped at Johnny, regarding him with something approaching disdain. The comment gave Johnny pause. He prided himself on his distinction from other performers, many of whom he, too, felt were shallow and had a lackadaisical attitude toward music and performing. He didn’t like to think of himself as being like anyone else. Just the week prior, he had announced his departure from the Grand Ole Opry and moved his family across the country to California, in part to pursue a career on the screen, but also to distinguish himself from the rabble in Nashville. He was his own man. The two men regarded each other silently in the stuffy room. Johnny slowly nodded, and then cracked a half-smile. This is a man who stands up for what he believes, Cash mused. Saul felt something shift. Johnny suddenly recognized him as a man in his own right, and an outspoken one at that — a distinct entity rather than just “some passing face in the night.” The two men shook hands.5
“Come as you are & eat in your car,” proclaimed the cube-shaped neon sign as “Old Gray,” Cash’s Cadillac sedan, joined the other Cadillacs and VW Beetles lined up in the drive-in parking lot. After making an appearance, Cash asked if there was somewhere else to eat, so Saul drove him to a nearby steak house, wisely concealing any insult he may have felt.
Finances on the Cash shows had worked well, so Saul negotiated a mid-November tour with Johnny’s new manager, Stew Carnall, for a couple of dates in Kitchener and Peterborough. After the final show in Peterborough, band members Marshall Grant and Luther Perkins were eating at a restaurant with cowboy singer Johnny Western and fiddler Gordon Terry when they noticed a man outside in the bitter cold, pacing beside his Cadillac convertible. Looking exasperated as he approached the restaurant, they realized it was Saul. The door jingled faintly as he came in. After he called a tow truck, Saul approached the table and chatted with the men, who were surprised and pleased at how friendly the promoter’s demeanour was. They began to warm to this city slicker. Stung by their previous encounter and the haggles over finances, Saul had been reluctant to engage with Cash and refused to speak to him for the entire two and a half days, taking care to avoid his dressing room. However, outside of business negotiations, Saul now seemed friendly to the men, even funny. And the shows had been a success, of that there was little doubt — Saul was back in the black, but only barely.6
Once the car was functional again, Saul picked up a friend, real estate magnate Keith Samitt, and the two hit the new 401 expressway to Montreal. As the highway unrolled in the headlights, his mind pored over his finances. The proceeds from the latest shows were a relief; the previous month he had promoted Marty Robbins in a disastrous tour that had sunk him, with more than two thousand dollars in lost revenue. Robbins had, of course, been gracious about the whole affair, and even gone so far as to attempt to adjust the contract so that Saul wouldn’t be out of pocket.
“That Marty Robbins tour didn’t go over so well,” Saul said to Keith, thinking out loud.
“Yeah? But he’s got that big song out, don’t he?”
“‘El Paso.’ I know, I thought it was a safe bet. He’s a good guy, Marty. Luckily, I don’t owe anything, but boy, I lost every liquid nickel on that tour,” said Saul, clenching his jaw and glancing at the speedometer. They were doing at least eighty miles an hour, but the highway was empty. He was broke. He had to think of something. “Marty said he’d arrange something so I could make a few bucks on the next tour. Maybe I oughta take him up on that now.”
He glanced at the car phone, a gadget he adored and used at every available opportunity. It made him feel a bit like Lyndon B. Johnson, who he heard also had a wet bar in his car.
“Hey, Saul. You said these shows you just did went over well. Why don’t you just get some more dates for Johnny instead?” said Keith.
Saul glanced at him, and then back at the road. Of course. He lifted the phone. “Get me Stew Carnall,” he said, and pressed his foot on the gas.7
Carnall had previously managed Johnny in a partnership with Bob Neal, but had bought him out in the beginning of 1960 and had since taken over full managerial duties. A start-up promoter from southern California, he was a prep-school boy who came from money, drove a brand-new Cadillac convertible, and kept himself busy booking small country packages. Four years earlier, he had come across Johnny’s music while swilling a beer and thumbing through songs on a jukebox and was immediately hooked. Initially, the seeming sophistication of tall, blond Carnall in his fancy shirtsleeves and vest put Johnny and his bandmates on edge; they were accustomed to eating at greasy spoons and setting off firecrackers in hotel rooms. However, after a few tours Carnall gave in and became as wild as they were.8
Carnall’s burgeoning friendship with Cash rose just as Neal’s relationship had begun to cool, and he became more of a central figure, but often in the role of friend and party companion. They had experienced their share of outrageous ideas that were often successful, like the time he booked Cash for New Year’s Eve shows in three different California-based cities — and then chartered a plane to pull it off — but Johnny was also in desperate need of someone reliable. By this point he was non-stop touring, performing almost three hundred shows a year to audiences of thousands. A racetrack junkie, Carnall had convinced Johnny to invest in a racehorse with him they named “Walk the Line,” and though he never managed to place better than third, it seemed that Stew had been spending more time hitting the tracks than he had managing Johnny.9
Saul took note of the slack left behind by Carnall and began to keep tabs on all aspects of Cash’s career and what his management entailed. After he called Stew from his car, both men agreed to work as partners on an eleven-show tour of Ontario in May, the largest Saul had yet organized for Johnny. Everything had to be in place. Though Stew came from money and could cut as impressive a figure as Saul did, he was so accustomed to their haphazard ways — carrying wads of cash in paper bags, showing up for flights only ten minutes before they left, and regularly trashing hotel rooms with paint, axes, and handmade explosives — that the litany of details Saul regaled him with during their negotiations must have both dazzled and irritated him. It may have also made him wonder if his days were numbered.
Johnny Cash, at home in California, circa 1960.
“Please forgive my long-windedness, but I feel that, to avoid any misunderstanding, I should be quite thorough concerning our arrangements,” Saul wrote in a four-page letter to Carnall regarding every nuance of the upcoming tour, from the receptivity of audiences in different areas of the country to the cost, availability, and suitability of venues — factoring in seating capacity and whether multiple shows were required to serve demand — and the price of local radio advertising in various cities, calculated down to the cost per second. In some cases, he averaged out the audience Johnny had drawn the last time he had played in a venue, even if it was years prior, and accounted for that also. “If you will examine the foregoing information you will find that it varies only slightly from your proposition, and that certainly it would make me feel like rolling up my sleeves and making this one helluva promotion,” Saul concluded.10
Johnny Cash. This publicity photo, circa 1958, reads, “Saul Holiff, ‘World’s Greatest Promoter’ Your Friend, Johnny Cash.”
Johnny put a dime in the hockey arena pay phone again and stabbed in the numbers. They were at a date in North Bay, Ontario, and near the end of the tour Saul had organized with Stew. It was May 18, 1961, and a business venture had arisen that couldn’t wait. Once again, Stew was nowhere to be found. Finally, he picked up.
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” said Johnny, shifting his weight from one long leg to the other, uncertain of how to begin. “And I know where you’ve