Johnny Cash
J. R. Cash was the son of a farmer named Ray Cash and his wife, Carrie Rivers
Cash. J. R. Was his real first name, until he changed it into “John” on joining the
US Air Force. He was born February 26th 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas.
He had 6 brothers and sisters: Roy, Louise, Jack, Reba, Joanne and Tommy. His
two years older brother died of an accident with a circular saw.
Due to Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in 1935 his family got a new farm in Dyess,
Arkansas, on which he already had to work at the age of 5 years.
In 1950 he joined the US Air Force. Soon he was send to Landsberg in Germany
as a radio operator, where he founded his first band, the Landsberg Barbarians.
In 1954 he came back to America and married his early love, Vivian Liberto.
They got four daughters: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. They moved to
Memphis, where Cash hired as a sales representative for kitchen equipment.
However, he was extremely unsuccessful, so that he started to try very hard to
initiate his carreer as a musician.
Together with his two friends, Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, he founded a
new band and tried to convince Sam Phillips from the label Sun Records of
contracting them.
Phillips recognized their talent, but adviced them to make country music. In
1955 they had their first hit “Cry, Cry, Cry” under the name Johnny Cash and
the Tennessee Two. “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues” follow and in
1957 they finally released their debut “Johnny Cash With his Hot and Blue
Guitar”.
At that time Sun Records had also contracted more of the later stars like Elvis
Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. In 1956 Cash got to know his later
wife, June Carter from the Carter Family, who he had been admiring since his
childhood. At the same time he started to begin his concerts with the words:
”Hello, I’m Johnny Cash!”, what became his trademark later.
In the end of the 50s Cash’s fame grew exceedingly and he was always on tour,
what stressed his marriage with Vivian Liberto. In 1957 he took his first
benzedrine tablet together with a couple of other musicians. From that on he
drank alcohol and took drugs more and more often.
In 1958 Johnny Cash went to California with his family and was contracted by
Columbia Records. Since 1961 he went on tour with June Carter and in 1963 he
released the song “Ring of Fire”, which was originally written by Merle Kilgore
and June Carter and turned out to be a big hit. The song is about his and June
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Carter’s forbidden love to each other and Cash’s drug addiction. In the
beginning of the 60s he released some albums like “Bitter Tears”, in which he
complained about how bad the President handled the indians.
Although he always had embodied an outlaw-image, he had never been in jail
until he was arrested in 1965, because he had tried to smuggle drugs from
Mexico to America in his guitar case.
His drug addiction was at it’s height. This led to the divorce from Vivian
Liberto, violent acts and cancellation of concerts.
Cash lost a lot of weight and bought a house at the Old Hickory Lake in
Hendersonville, where he let himself go for a long time until June Carter and her
parents came to help him. They protected him from the people he had earlier
taken drugs with and so he had his first sober concert since 10 years at the
Hendersonville High School in November 1967.
Some time later he fulfilled himself one of his biggest wishes, he recorded two
live-albums in a prison. The first of those, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison”,
became a big hit. On February 22nd 1968 Cash proposed marriage to June Carter
during a concert in Ontario, Kanada, which she accepted. They married on
March 1st 1968 in Franklin, Kentucky.
In August 1968 Luther Perkins died of a house burning and was replaced by Bob
Wootton. On February 24th 1969 he had a concert at San Quentin prison in
California, that made him popular in the whole world.
The only child of June Carter and Johnny Cash, John Carter Cash, was born on
March 3rd 1970.
From 1969 to 1971 Cash had “The Johnny Cash Show” at the American TV-
Channel ABC, where he welcomed guests like Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell.
In the early 1970s he began only wearing black clothes during concerts, because
of which he earned the name Man in Black.
In 1980 Johnny Cash received the highest award of country music: He was
included in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
In the same year he released his album “Rockabilly Blues”, followed by
“Johnny 99” in 1983.
In 1985 the most famous artists of the Outlaw movement, who were against the
modern Nashville country music, and Johnny Cash founded the Highwaymen.
With their album “Highwayman” he reached the first place of the country charts
for the first time since 10 years.
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Johnny also had a few appearances on TV, for example in “North and South” or
the Western series “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” together with his wife.
In 1988 he had to undergo a double bypass operation. Afterwards his popularity
decreased and he only produced a couple of not very successful albums.
In 1992 he was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although he had not
been producing any important albums for years.
Finally, in 1994, the famous producer Rick Rubin offered him a contract. They
recorded the album “American Recordings”. Two years later Cash released
“Unchained”, which was also produced by Rubin. During the recordings for this
album Cash’s health was already so bad, that he had to take breaks.
In October 1997 he almost fainted while picking up a plectrum.
In an investigation the doctors made the diagnosis that he was afflicted with the
Parkinson’s disease. But two years later they diagnosed the Sly-Drager
syndrome, a disease like Parkinon, but not healable. Just a little later he was told
he was afflicted with an autonomous Neuropathy, a disease of the central
nervous system.
Johnny Cash kept on recording music with Rick Rubin and in October 2000
“American III – Solitary Man” was released.
In October 2001 he had to be kept in artifcial comatose for a whole week. He
also had asthma and glaucoma.
In 2002 he produced his last album “American IV – The Man Comes Around”,
that got up to place two in the American charts.
On May 15th 2003 June Carter Cash died at the age of 73 because of a heart
operation. A few months later Rick Rubin sent Johnny Cash mixes for the CD
box “Unearthed”, but Cash died on the next day, September 12th 2003, at the age
of 71 in Baptist Hospital in Nashville because of his disease.
The director James Mangold made a movie of the life of Johnny Cash in 2005,
that was awarded with three Golden Globes and nominated fo five Oscars.
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