b. 26 February 1932, Kingsland, Arkansas, USA, d. 12 September 2003, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. One of the giants of American music, Cash made over 70 albums of original material, plus countless guest appearances. His music reflected his love of America, his compassion, his love of life, and, what is often lacking in country music, a sense of humour. Heeding the advice he was given during his one and only singing lesson, ‘Never change your voice’, Cash’s limited range proved staggeringly impressive on particular songs, especially narrative ones. Like Bo Diddley’s ‘shave and a haircut’ rhythm, he developed his music around his ‘boom chicka boom’, and instilled enough variety to stave off boredom.
Cash traced his ancestry to seventeenth-century Scotland and admitted that he fabricated the much-publicized story that he was a quarter Cherokee. Cash’s father, Ray, worked on sawmills and the railway; in 1936, the family was one of 600 chosen by the Federal Government to reclaim land by the Mississippi River, known as the Dyess Colony Scheme. Much of it was swampland, and in 1937, they were evacuated when the river overflowed. Cash recalled the circumstances in his 1959 country hit ‘Five Foot High And Risin’’. Other songs inspired by his youth are ‘Pickin’ Time’, ‘Christmas As I Knew It’ and ‘Cisco Clifton’s Filling Station’. Rockabilly artist Carl Perkins wrote ‘Daddy Sang Bass’ about Cash’s family and the ‘little brother’ is Jack Cash, who was killed when he fell across an electric saw.
After graduating from Dyess High School in 1950, Cash began work in a car factory in Pontiac, Michigan, before signing up for a stint in the United States Air Force. He was posted to Landsberg, West Germany as a radio intercept officer, eavesdropping on Russian radio traffic. Many thought the scar on his cheek was a knife wound but it was actually the result of a cyst being removed by a drunken doctor, while his hearing was permanently damaged by a German girl playfully sticking a pencil down his left ear. Cash taught himself the guitar while stationed in Germany and played in a bar band called the Landsberg Barbarians. After his discharge, he returned to the US where he settled in Memphis, Tennessee with his bride, Vivian Liberto. One of their four children, Rosanne Cash, also became a country singer.
Struggling to make a living as a household appliance salesman, Cash auditioned as a gospel singer with Sam Phillips of Sun Records in Memphis, who told him to return with something more commercial. Cash developed his ‘boom chicka boom’ sound with two friends: Luther Perkins (b. 8 January 1928, USA, d. 5 August 1968, Tennessee, USA; lead guitar) and Marshall Grant (bass). Their first record, ‘Hey Porter’/‘Cry! Cry! Cry!’, credited to Johnny Cash And The Tennessee Two, was released in June 1955, but Cash was irritated that Phillips had called him ‘Johnny’, as it sounded too young. ‘Cry! Cry! Cry!’ made number 14 on the US country charts and was followed by ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ (featuring one of his most famous lines, ‘Well, I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die’), which Cash wrote after seeing a film called Inside The Walls Of Folsom Prison. They played shows with another Sun artist, Carl Perkins (no relation to Luther Perkins). Perkins’ drummer, W.S. Holland, joined Cash in 1958 to make it the Tennessee Three. Cash encouraged Perkins to complete the writing of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, while he finished ‘I Walk The Line’ at Perkins’ insistence: ‘I got the idea from a Dale Carnegie course. It taught you to keep your eyes open for something good. I made a love song out of it. It was meant to be a slow, mournful ballad but Sam had us pick up the tempo until I didn’t like it at all.’ ‘I Walk The Line’ reached number 17 on the US pop charts and was the title song for a 1970 movie starring Gregory Peck. Among Cash’s other excellent Sun records are ‘Home Of The Blues’, which was the name of a Memphis record shop, ‘Big River’, ‘Luther Played The Boogie’, ‘Give My Love To Rose’ and ‘There You Go’, which topped the US country charts for five weeks. Producer Jack Clement added piano and vocal chorus. They achieved further pop hits with the high school tale ‘Ballad Of A Teenage Queen’ (number 14), ‘Guess Things Happen That Way’ (number 11) and ‘The Ways Of A Woman In Love’ (number 24). While at Sun Records, Cash wrote ‘You’re My Baby’ and ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Ruby’ which were recorded by Roy Orbison and Warren Smith, respectively.
At a disc jockeys’ convention in Nashville in November 1957, Sun launched their first ever album release, Cash’s With His Hot And Blue Guitar, but Phillips was reluctant to record further LPs with the singer. This, and an unwillingness to increase his royalties, led to Cash relocating to Los Angeles and joining Columbia Records in 1958.