Ronnie Dunn’s First Meeting With Johnny Cash Ended in a Trip to the Hospital

Meeting your idols is nerve-wracking no matter the circumstances, but as Ronnie Dunn learned when meeting Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash for the first time, it can always get more stressful, more tense, and more weird. The one-half of country duo Brooks & Dunn met the iconic power couple through his wife, Janine Dunn, in the late 1980s.

After awkward conversations about television news cycles and the pitfalls of marrying a musician, the Dunns’ visit to the Cash-Carter household culminated in an appropriately odd ending: Ronnie and Janine driving Johnny to the hospital.

Ronnie Dunn’s First Meeting with Johnny Cash

In a 2024 appearance on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, Ronnie Dunn shared the rollercoaster ride that was his first meeting with musical icons Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. The country power couple had been close friends with Janine Dunn’s late first husband. So, when the time came for Janine to introduce her second husband, Ronnie, to her old pals, they did so via a multiple-day visit to the Cash home.

In an uncomfortable turn of events that seemed to foreshadow the hours to follow, Janine and June went out shopping and left Ronnie and Johnny alone with one another. The “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” singer recalled Cash being intimidatingly quiet and shy to people he didn’t know very well—including Dunn. Cash eventually began talking about television news cycles and how he watched them from an addict’s perspective, constantly chasing down the start of the next cycle.

The conversations between Janine and June were no less stiff. According to Dunn, when his wife arrived back at the Cash residence, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. Apparently, industry vet June advised Janine against marrying a musician like Ronnie. As Ronnie begged his wife to cut their visit short, things only got stranger.

An Impromptu “Pedal to the Medal” Trip to the Hospital

When Ronnie and Janine Dunn visited the home of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, the “Walk the Line” singer was on a short break from rehab. Although he was supposed to return shortly after the Dunns came over, Johnny began complaining that he wasn’t feeling well. June was having none of it and told him as much in front of their house guests. Eventually, June employed the Dunns to do more than watch.

“This is a Saturday. He’s going back on a Sunday, and he comes down with the flu,” Dunn recalled. “Yeah. June’s having no part of that. She’s completely just, ‘Uh-uh, no, we’re done.’ She wanted to talk to him, and we’re caught in the middle of that. June goes to Janine, ‘Y’all have to drive him to the hospital. Take him to the hospital here in Hendersonville. Just see what’s wrong with him.’ She says, ‘I’m not talking to him. He can walk as far as I’m concerned.’” What’s there to do but oblige?

As Ronnie, Janine, and Johnny made their way to the car, Cash insisted that he drive to the hospital. “It was like pedal to the medal, boom, off all the way, pedal to the medal,” Dunn said. The Dunns got the “Folsom Prison Blues” singer to the hospital safely. Hospital workers asked the Dunns for Cash’s primary doctor, but when they relayed this message to his wife, Ronnie said June replied, “‘Oh, hun. He’s in rehab.’”

The Dunns’ subsequent interactions with the Cash’s were far less chilly and more supportive. Still, that doesn’t change just how memorable that first visit was, from the tight-lipped conversations in front of the television set to the breakneck dash to the Hendersonville hospital.

Photo by Gary Miller/FilmMagic