Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash was born J. R. Cash on the 26th of February 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. His family moved to Dyess, Arkansas, in March 1935 when he was three years old. The farm suffered a flood during his childhood, and the family struggled through the Great Depression. He worked in cotton fields from age five, singing with his parents as they labored. A tragedy struck in 1944 when his older brother Jack died after being cut almost in two by an unguarded table saw at work. Jack passed away one week later, leaving Cash with lifelong guilt over the incident. He often spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in Heaven.
Cash enlisted in the Air Force on the 7th of July 1950, shortly after the start of the Korean War. He trained at Lackland Air Force Base and Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile at Landsberg, West Germany. While there, he intercepted Soviet Army transmissions as a Morse code operator. He claimed to be the first American to learn of Joseph Stalin's death via this method. During his service, he created his first band called The Landsberg Barbarians. He was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant on the 3rd of July 1954, and returned to Texas.
In 1954, Cash moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to become a radio announcer. At night, he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, forming the Tennessee Two. He auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records studio by singing mostly gospel songs. Phillips told him he no longer recorded gospel music. Cash eventually won over the producer with new songs delivered in an early rockabilly style. His first recordings at Sun were Hey Porter and Cry! Cry! Cry!, released in late June 1955.
On the 4th of December 1956, Elvis Presley dropped into the studio while Carl Perkins cut new tracks. Jerry Lee Lewis backed Presley on piano. Cash joined them for an impromptu jam session that Phillips left running. These recordings survived and were later released under the title Million Dollar Quartet. Cash's next record, Folsom Prison Blues, made the country top five. His song I Walk the Line became number one on the country charts and entered the pop charts top twenty. In 1957, he became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. Despite being Sun's most consistently selling artist, Cash felt constrained by his contract. Phillips paid him a 3% royalty rather than the standard rate of 5%. In 1958, Cash left Phillips to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records.
As his career took off in the late 1950s, Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. He shared an apartment in Nashville with Waylon Jennings, who was deeply addicted to amphetamines. Cash used stimulants to stay awake during tours. Friends joked about his nervousness and erratic behavior, ignoring warning signs of worsening drug addiction. His rendition of Ring of Fire reached number one on the country charts and entered the top twenty on the pop charts. The signature mariachi-style horn arrangement came from a dream he had.
In June 1965, Cash's camper caught fire during a fishing trip with his nephew Damon Fielder in Los Padres National Forest. The fire burned several hundred acres and nearly caused his death. A federal government lawsuit awarded $125,172 against him before he settled for $82,001. On the 11th of May 1965, he was arrested in Starkville, Mississippi, for trespassing onto private property to pick flowers. Later that year, officers found 688 Dexedrine capsules hidden inside his guitar case. He received a suspended sentence and posted a $1,500 bond. Cash was last arrested in 1967 in Walker County, Georgia, after police found he was carrying prescription pills following a car accident.
Cash began performing concerts at prisons in the late 1950s. He played his first notable prison concert on the 1st of January 1958, at San Quentin State Prison in California. These performances were recorded live and released as highly successful albums: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison in 1968 and Johnny Cash at San Quentin in 1969. Both live albums reached number one on Billboard country album music charts. The latter crossed over to reach the top of the Billboard pop album chart. In 1969, Cash became an international hit when he eclipsed even the Beatles by selling 6.5 million albums.
In 1964, Cash recorded Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, featuring stories of Indigenous peoples like the Pima, Navajo, Apache, Lakota, Seneca, and Cherokee. The album's single, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, generally did not play on commercial radio due to its provocative nature. On the 22nd of August 1964, Cash posted a letter as an advertisement in Billboard calling the record industry cowardly. The song eventually reached number three on the country charts, and the album rose to number two on the album charts. In 1966, Cash was adopted by the Seneca Nation's Turtle Clan. He performed benefits in 1968 at the Rosebud Reservation to raise money for building a school.
By the early 1970s, Cash had established his public image as the Man in Black. He regularly performed in entirely black suits with a long, black, knee-length coat. This outfit stood in contrast to rhinestone suits worn by most major country acts of his day. Cash said he wore all black on behalf of the poor and hungry, the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, and those betrayed by age or drugs. He added that he wore it in mourning for lives lost during the Vietnam War.
Initially, he and his band wore black shirts because that was the only matching color they had among their various outfits. He claimed to like wearing black both on and off stage. The outdated US Navy winter blue uniform used to be referred to by sailors as Johnny Cashes due to its solid black shirt, tie, and trousers. His first autobiography, Man in Black, was published in 1975 and sold 1.3 million copies. A second book, Cash: The Autobiography, appeared in 1997. Cash viewed his film Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus as a statement of personal faith rather than proselytizing.
After Columbia Records dropped Cash from his recording contract, he had a short stint with Mercury Records from 1987 to 1991. No longer sought after by major labels, he was offered a contract with producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings label. Under Rubin's supervision, he recorded American Recordings in 1994 in his living room, accompanied only by his Martin Dreadnought guitar. The album featured covers of contemporary artists selected by Rubin and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
Cash wrote that his reception at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival was one of the highlights of his career. This marked the beginning of a decade of music industry accolades and commercial success. He teamed up with Brooks & Dunn to contribute Folsom Prison Blues to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country. In 1996, he collaborated with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Unchained, which won the Best Country Album Grammy in 1998. The album was produced by Rick Rubin with Sylvia Massy engineering and mixing. A majority of Unchained was recorded at Sound City Studios and featured guest appearances by Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, and Marty Stuart.
In 1997, during a trip to New York City, Cash was diagnosed with Shy-Drager syndrome, a form of multiple system atrophy. The illness forced him to curtail touring. He was hospitalized in 1998 with severe pneumonia, which damaged his lungs. During the last stage of his career, Cash released American III: Solitary Man in 2000 and American IV: The Man Comes Around in 2002. American IV included cover songs from late 20th-century rock artists, notably Hurt by Nine Inch Nails and Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode.
June Carter Cash died on the 15th of May 2003, aged 73. June had told Cash to keep working, so he continued to record, completing 60 songs in the last four months of his life. His final recordings were made on the 21st of August 2003, consisting of Like the 309 and Engine 143. On the 12th of September 2003, at approximately 2am Central Time, while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, Cash died of complications from diabetes at age 71. Public funeral services were held at the First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. He was buried next to her at Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home.
Cash received multiple Country Music Association Awards, Grammys, and other honors across categories ranging from vocal performances to album notes and videos. He was inducted into five major music halls of fame: the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, GMA's Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2010, and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2013. In 1999, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In November 2005, Walk the Line, a biographical film about Cash's life, was released to considerable commercial success and critical acclaim. The film featured Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny and Reese Witherspoon as June. Phoenix learned to play guitar for the role and won a Grammy Award for his contributions to the soundtrack. On the 10th of April 2007, during renovation works carried out for Barry Gibb, a fire broke out at Cash's lakeside home on Caudill Drive in Hendersonville, destroying the building completely. A new museum founded by Shannon and Bill Miller opened the 26th of April 2013, in downtown Nashville.
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Common questions
When and where was Johnny Cash born?
Johnny Cash was born J. R. Cash on the 26th of February 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas.
What happened to Johnny Cash's brother Jack in 1944?
Jack died after being cut almost in two by an unguarded table saw at work and passed away one week later, leaving Cash with lifelong guilt over the incident.
How did Johnny Cash die and when did he pass away?
Cash died of complications from diabetes at age 71 on the 12th of September 2003, while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee.
Which prison concert album reached number one on both country and pop charts for Johnny Cash?
The live album Johnny Cash at San Quentin released in 1969 crossed over to reach the top of the Billboard pop album chart and number one on Billboard country album music charts.
Why did Johnny Cash wear all black clothing during his performances?
Cash said he wore all black on behalf of the poor and hungry, the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, and those betrayed by age or drugs, adding that he wore it in mourning for lives lost during the Vietnam War.