Both premiere on April 10th

REELZ has announced its April 2021 premieres led by new original stories focused on country music legends Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. Willie Nelson: Highs and Lows and Johnny Cash: Road to Redemption premiere on Saturday, April 10th at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT and 9 pm ET/9 pm PT, respectively on the cable and satellite network.

Willie Nelson wrote some of country music’s most iconic songs including “Funny How Time Slips Away”, “Crazy” and “On the Road Again” but the music establishment failed to embrace his wildly unorthodox approach to performing. Even after penning some of Nashville’s best-known hits his record label’s cookie-cutter approach to creating music made Nelson contemplate selling vacuum cleaners. Distraught and on the verge of personal and financial collapse including a suicide attempt and his house burning down Nelson heads back to Texas. There he brazenly threw out the entire country music playbook and invented his own musical rules. The consummate outlaw in country music Nelson became a literal outlaw when he was arrested for a $17 million tax debt. His famous love of marijuana also landed him in jail and on the roof of the White House with a member of the first family. Through all of the epic highs and career threatening lows he remains a pop culture figure and legend of country music. Sharing their personal stories of Nelson are Country Music Hall of Fame artist Ronnie Dunn, Shooter Jennings, Kinky Friedman and radio host Blair Garner along with Austin City Limits Executive Producer Terry Lickona and Joe Nick Patoski, author of “Willie Nelson: An Epic Life”. Willie Nelson: Highs and Lows is produced by AMS Pictures.

A man of deep contrasts Johnny Cash was a defiant lone wolf concealing a kind and generous heart, a sinner and outlaw but strong in his faith the epitome of cool yet a prisoner to his human frailties. Above all Cash demonstrates that imperfection is part of the journey and that the ultimate reward is deliverance. With his once-promising career a hazy drug-fueled memory Cash journeyed into hell in order to find redemption. Once a wildly creative and highly driven artist the man in black had dried up. Then came a risky live album recorded at Folsom Prison. Few believed in him and no one could imagine that this day would give birth to the revered legend we know today. But what exactly happened on that fateful day in January 1968? What demons led him to one of the most dangerous places in American society? Could his journey into the underworld really save his soul? Featured are intimate interviews from those connected to Cash including his daughter Cindy Cash, close friend and actor John Schneider, rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis, drummer W.S. Holland, nephew Roy Cash and Michael Streissguth, author of “Johnny Cash: The Biography” among others. Johnny Cash: Road to Redemption is produced by AMS Pictures.