Today (Feb. 26) marks what would have been Johnny Cash’s 91st birthday, which made us wonder: Did the legendary artist who wrote songs about working a Cadillac assembly line in Detroit in “One Piece at a Time” and who once covered “Saginaw, Michigan” … ever visit Traverse City?

He did – and according to Cash, we have his love of fishing to thank for it.

Born in Arkansas in 1932, the story of J.R. Cash’s life has been covered in books, films (“Walk the Line”) and of course, his own music in songs like “Five Feet High and Rising” and “Man in Black.” Cash is rightfully considered a legend today, but when he was on the road in the late ’70s and early ’80s, playing gigs at places like Saginaw’s Civic Center and the U.P. State Fair in Escanaba, he was not in the pantheon of greats just yet.

Cash’s first mention by name in Traverse City came at the start of his career in July 1959, when an advertisement for Coddington Music (152 East Front Street) in the Traverse City Record-Eagle called his debut “The Fabulous Johnny Cash” one of their current favorites and offered the opportunity to listen to the records before you buy them with the assistance of, as they put it, “competent help.” The Record-Eagle also reported in August of that year that a baby-faced Cash was to be included on the bill of NBC’s Bell Telephone Hour covering Camptown Races; a program that could have aired on Traverse City’s WPBN-TV, which had been on the air for just over five years at the time.

While Cash was a familiar face on TV and the radio throughout the ’60s and ’70s, the first “appearance” in Traverse City we could find came in January 1975 by way of an exclusive showing of his film “The Gospel Road.” It was screened at two area churches: Faith Assembly of God and Bethlehem Lutheran Church, and documented the life of Jesus as written, narrated, and produced by Cash alongside wife June Carter Cash. Fans would have to wait another two-and-a-half years before finally getting to see him in the flesh.

Cash came to the Cherry Capital in August 1977 for a performance at the Glacier Dome (now the home of Cherry Capital Foods at 1610 Barlow Street). According to the Record-Eagle, more than 4,200 people packed into the space for a two-hour concert which featured hits like “Walk the Line,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Ring of Fire,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” “Jackson,” and “Man in Black.”

Per the Record-Eagle, the crowd at this Traverse City concert was unlike other Glacier Dome shows featuring the likes of Styx and Bob Seger. The report specifically noted that “unlike spectators at Dome rock concerts, they stayed in their seats during most of the concert, applauding enthusiastically usually only at the beginning or the end of a song.”

Despite the more laid-back crowd, Cash had nothing but good things to say about the Grand Traverse region, noting: “This area is beautiful. When we came through here in February after a concert in Marquette, I told my manager to book us in Traverse City. I wish I could stay and go fishing with you.”

Cash almost certainly had his timing wrong – he’s recorded as playing Marquette’s Lakeview Arena in April of that year – but it certainly makes more sense that he would find April more appealing than February.

Though Cash famously battled addictions much of his life, he had remained on the straight and narrow for most of the 1970’s, but reportedly started to backslide in 1977, which is what the Record-Eagle reporter could have been inadvertently referencing when he wrote, “The singer appeared slightly jittery before the show. Whenever a photographer moved around him, Cash turned so fast that his right profile - the side of his face with a scar - faced the camera.”

An interesting post-show anecdote: On his way out of town, Cash reportedly stopped at the Hillside Antiques store in Kingsley, where he purchased a large antique bookcase, which led to a feature about the antique store owner’s niece who got to chat with Cash at the concert. Next time you find yourself cruising through downtown Kingsley, entertain the idea of what it might have been like for a huge concert tour bus to pull up outside a shop in the summer heat of 1977, and then seeing the world’s greatest country music singer and songwriter emerge…to go antiquing.

Incidentally, Dolly Parton also played the Glacier in November of ‘77, just a few years following her split from Porter Wagoner. (Ticket price: $6.) She didn’t get nearly the coverage that Cash received, nor nearly the deference. Describing her as “small, stacked, lively, and with a voice that could have probably carried without amplification,” the Record-Eagle reported more on her appearance than on her music, calling out her “skin-tight white pants and a spangled red top” as well as a joke about the size of Dolly’s…um, wigs…long before mentioning the renditions of her numerous hits that the “Queen of Country” played for the nearly 3,000 concertgoers in attendance.

Still – that summer and fall was a pretty good time to be a music fan in northern Michigan.