Johnny and June

Imagine you get a magic gold ticket that lets you travel through space and time to grab any band, or music act, living or dead, together or broken up, and transport them to play live at a venue near you. Who would you pick? Why?

This is incredibly hard. I did not know upon reading the prompt. I spent a ton of time thinking about this. I think the clichéd answer would be The Beatles. But that’s not what I’m going to answer. Because yeah, they’re The Beatles and it would be awesome, but they’re not my number one all time favorite thing ever.

I’m half-tempted to say Julie Andrews, before her surgery. Because she is incredible and one of my all-time favorites. But I never really think of her as a concert act.

Or *NSYNC.  I’m holding out for that reunion tour Justin. (I’m sure Chris is too. What happened to him?) But I’m not wasting a magic golden ticket on *NSYNC. And I already saw Justin bring sexyback. And he sang *NSYNC songs on that tour too.

And then I remembered…and knew that this was the right choice. I want to see Johnny and June Carter Cash. They’re some of my favorite artists ever. There can’t be copycats. Especially with Johnny’s incredibly distinctive voice.

On top of the talent, they have an incredible love story. In Johnny’s last public performance, he had this to say before singing “Ring Of Fire”, a song June wrote for him-

The spirit of June Carter overshadows me tonight with the love she had for me and the love I have for her. We connect somewhere between here and heaven. She came down for a short visit, I guess, from heaven to visit with me tonight to give me courage and inspiration like she always has.

Which…those two really do have the best American love story. It’s often said that Johnny died of a broken heart four months after June died.

And there’s things like this:

How freaking cute.

So my final answer is Johnny and June. I don’t even care what stage in their career they are. Just to see them. Together. Doing what they do-making incredible music. Together. Always together.

I wanna love like Johnny and June/rings of fire burnin’ with you/I wanna walk the line/Walk the line/’Till the end of time/I wanna love/Love ya that much/Cash it all in/Give it all up/When you’re gone/I wanna go too/Like Johnny and June – “Johnny and June”, Heidi Newfield.