“What would it sound like if Johnny Cash had an illegitimate daughter raised in Juarez?” asks the Juanita Ca$h Facebook page. “Juanita Ca$h has come to take her revenge on her father’s music: Blasphemous, boisterous, psychedelic cumbia versions of her daddy’s classic songs.”
Uhm, huh?
“I’m a radio producer for Afropop Worldwide. So one day my former boss Sam Backer [and I] were listening to some music,” says Morgan Greenstreet, Ca$h’s percussionist. “Honestly, I can’t remember if we were listening to cumbia or Johnny Cash. He turned to me and said, ‘I have the best idea for a band. It’s going to be called Juanita Cash, and it’s going to be cumbia covers of Johnny Cash songs, and you’re going to spell the Ca$h with a dollar sign, and you’re going to have a female singer! Isn’t that the best idea ever?!’”