Jimmy Bowen Back to Produce Haggard

Producer Jimmy Bowen -- who as head of Liberty Records lost a power struggle to its flagship artist, Garth Brooks -- is reportedly coming out of retirement to produce an album for Capitol on Merle Haggard. The label will neither confirm nor deny the story.

Press release

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Aug. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- CMT remembers American icon Johnny Cash, a music trailblazer and rebellious troubadour for the downtrodden, with a weekend of poignant programming commemorating the one-year anniversary of his death. The cornerstone of this outstanding weekend will be the premiere of the compelling CONTROVERSY: JOHNNY CASH VS. MUSIC ROW on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT* (repeats Sunday, Sept. 12 at 2:30- 3:30 PM, ET/PT). Additional CMT original programming will include encore telecasts of the JOHNNY CASH MEMORIAL TRIBUTE, INSIDE FAME: JOHNNY CASH, CMT 40 GREATEST MEN OF COUNTRY MUSIC and a new episode of STACKED: JOHNNY CASH.

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In a CONTROVERSY: JOHNNY CASH VS. MUSIC ROW exclusive interview, Kris Kristofferson talks about Cash's departure from Columbia Records. "I felt that it was a statement more about country music than it was about John. Country music had gotten so big, largely because of John. His television show brought attention to country music that it never had before, when [the show] had people like Bob Dylan and James Taylor. People who didn't usually go to Nashville were coming to Nashville out of respect for Johnny Cash," Kristofferson says.

Rosanne Cash, in an intimate interview, comments on the effect the tumultuous time had on Cash. "I think in the 80s there were certainly people in the country music establishment who got who Johnny Cash was and that he was one of the few great artists of the 20th century. There are certainly people who got that and who always knew it. There were other people who probably thought -- it's over for him," Cash says.

"The thing about Johnny Cash is he was both Saturday night and Sunday morning," says Rolling Stone magazine's Anthony DeCurtis on Cash's complexity. "He was never going to get some of the acknowledgement I think that he wanted from the country music community and I think he accepted that."