In the music of Johnny Cash, the Saturday night sinner shook hands with the Sunday morning penitent, the gunslinger and the Bible thumper got equal time, and several generations of everyday folks found a voice to call their own.
The barrel-chested Man in Black died Friday in Nashville at age 71 of complications from diabetes. He had been released from a hospital Wednesday after a two-week stay for treatment of a stomach ailment. In recent years, he fought autonomic neuropathy–a nervous system disorder–and pneumonia.
Though Cash’s voice was limited in range, it was absolutely unmistakable–a Grand Canyon baritone that cut through the radio airwaves and led to three decades in which he dominated not only the country charts, but also jousted with Elvis Presley, James Brown and the Beatles for pop supremacy. In the last decade, he enjoyed renewed popularity with a new generation of artists. He also redefined country music in the ’50s, establishing an enduring image as a hell-raising, pill-popping rebel who went on to host a prime-time national television show in the ’60s and ’70s.
“Bigger than any musical genre was Johnny Cash,” said country singer Tim McGraw. “He was an American music icon that set the standard for how to make music on your own terms.”
Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, to dirt-poor Arkansas sharecroppers and later joined the Air Force. Upon his discharge, he moved to Memphis, where he was determined to find an outlet for the songs he had begun writing while stationed overseas. He began recording for Sam Phillips at Sun Studios, and their collaborations — “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” “Big River” — established his signature sound: a stoic voice that moved with the unhurried cadence of everyday speech, and a sparse, train-chugging rhythm that blurred the boundaries between country, blues and rock ‘n’ roll.
It was a revolutionary mix, crossing over from the country charts to the teens watching “American Bandstand.”
“He was a pop star. To me, growing up in England, he wasn’t just a country and western star–he was like Elvis,” said Jon Langford of the Mekons, who in the 1980s organized a Cash tribute album. “He put some meat on the bones of pop music. It was so simple and so stripped down, but there was such an authority to what he did. He was pure and simple, and incredibly powerful.”
Battling addictions
Cash expanded his sound and audience during the Vietnam War-era; he slapped mariachi horns on “Ring of Fire,” sang about “A Boy Named Sue” in front of an audience of prisoners, performed a duet with folk-rock icon Bob Dylan on “Girl From the North Country” and introduced a maverick songwriter named Kris Kristofferson to the mainstream with “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” a heavily orchestrated ballad rife with images of dissolution, despair and drug abuse.
Cash also battled addictions with drugs and alcohol, was arrested and fined for trying to smuggle amphetamines in his guitar case across the Mexican border, and once got so strung out he contemplated suicide. He drove himself to a secluded mountainous area on the Tennessee River and considered crawling into a cave to die.
“I became conscious of a very clear, simple idea: I was not in charge of my destiny,” Cash wrote in his autobiography. “I was not in charge of my own death. I was going to die at God’s time, not mine.”
He started to clean up his act in 1967 and the next year married June Carter, daughter of country pioneer Mother Maybelle Carter. Carter and Cash had one child, John Carter Cash, a musician and producer.
The relationship saved his life, Cash has said, and when their 35-year partnership ended with her death in May at age 73, he was heartbroken.
Cash and Carter recorded together, including the 1967 hit duet “Jackson.” In 1963, Cash went to No. 1 on the country charts with the single “Ring of Fire,” a song written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore. The tune was born out of the early romantic passion and angst that was then blossoming between Carter and Cash, both married to others at the time.
Kilgore recalls Carter’s distress when they wrote “Ring of Fire.” “She kind of looked disturbed that day,” he said. “June said, `I’m just falling so in love with Johnny, and I’m married and he’s married, and Lord, I just don’t know what to do. And to top that off, I got a letter from a friend that said she got divorced, and she’s never fallen in love again, and that love was like a burning ring of fire.’ I said, `Whoa, hey, that sounds like a pretty good idea.’ And June said, `It is a burning ring of fire.'”
American revival
Cash ended up playing the oldies circuit in the ’80s, but his career was revived in the ’90s, thanks to a relationship with rock and hip-hop producer Rick Rubin. Rather than try to tailor Cash’s sound for the MTV generation, Rubin stripped it back to its essence on the 1994 album “American Recordings.”
“It was a revelation, because I always wanted to do an album with just my guitar,” Cash said in a 1996 Tribune interview. “I remember 25 years ago telling Marty Robbins I wanted to do an album called `Late and Alone.’ But it never felt right. Doing that record was a dream come true.”
The partnership produced four acclaimed albums and several Grammy awards. Cash was scheduled to visit with Rubin this weekend to decide on the final tracks for a fifth volume. In his career Cash won 11 Grammy awards and was elected to the Country Music and Rock ‘n’ Roll halls of fame.
Singer Rosanne Cash is Johnny Cash’s daughter from his first marriage, to Vivian Liberto. Their other three children were Kathleen, Cindy and Tara. They divorced in 1966.
Cash lived in Hendersonville, Tenn., just outside of Nashville. He also had a home in Jamaica.
Essential Cash
“The Sun Years” (1990)
“Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West” (1965)
“Hymns By Johnny Cash” (1959)
“At Folsom Prison” (1968)
“At San Quentin” (1969)
“Sunday Morning Coming Down” (1973)
“Water from the Wells of Home” (1988)
“The Mystery of Life” (1991)
“American Recordings” (1994)
“Unchained” (1996)
“Solitary Man” (2000)
“Love God Murder” (2000)
“The Man Comes Around” (2002)
“The Essential Johnny Cash” (2002)
— Greg Kot
