KINGSTON SPRINGS SUITE (DLCD)

Limited vinyl LP pressing housed in a tip on jacket with a four panel heavy insert containing rare photographs, essay's by Frye Gaillard and Vince Matthews, the recipe for Melva's Wine and digital download. First-ever release of the heavily mythologized outlaw concept album from 1972. Vince Matthews and Jim Casey were two of the best and wildest songwriters to emerge during the brief, post Dylan, artistic renaissance period in Nashville, TN. Their songs were recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Gordon Lightfoot, and Sammi Smith, among others, and their 24 hour lifestyle was accepted and encouraged. The "Suite" was their ambitious dream project, and it's presentation was to include film, slides, costumes, narration, and songs. A script/treatment by Vince was green-lighted to be a complete episode on the Johnny Cash television show. The Cash show never happened, but the Suite was performed at a Johnny Cash concert at Pocono Speedway, and at a dress rehearsal in the Kingston Springs HS gymnasium (With Johnny, June, and baby John Carter in attendance). But things began falling apart as Vince's ambitions grew bigger and his craziness got crazier. Shel Silverstein and Larry Wilkerson immortalized him in their song "Vince", but the Suite was never completed to his satisfaction and remained unreleased. Interest lagged and the doors slammed shut by 1974, when Nashville had shaken off the crazies and gotten back to business as usual.