Memorial Page for Johnny Cash (née J. R. Cash)

Johnny Cash (born 26 February 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas; died 12 September 2003 in Nashville) was an American country singer and songwriter. With his deep, unmistakable voice, his persona as the "Man in Black" and songs such as I Walk the Line and Folsom Prison Blues, he became one of the defining figures in American music history – an artist whose work bridged country, rock, folk and gospel and who, even late in life, reached a mass audience far beyond his home genre.

Cotton fields and the Air Force

Cash grew up as the fourth of seven children of farmer Raymond Cash and his wife Carrie in Dyess, Arkansas – a settlement the family had been assigned under a New Deal program. He was working the cotton fields by age five; the early death of his older brother Jack in a workplace accident in 1944 stayed with him for the rest of his life. In 1950 Cash joined the US Air Force and from October 1951 was stationed as a radio operator at Landsberg am Lech in West Germany, where he bought his first guitar. He was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant in June 1954 and, on 7 August that year, married Vivian Liberto, whom he had met during basic training in San Antonio.

Sun Records and the breakthrough

In Memphis, Cash worked by day as an appliance salesman and played by night with guitarists Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, who became the Tennessee Two. Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records, signed him; the first single, Hey, Porter / Cry! Cry! Cry!, was released on 21 June 1955. Folsom Prison Blues followed in December 1955, and in May 1956 came I Walk the Line, which reached number one on the country charts and the pop Top 20. On 4 December 1956 Cash took part, alongside Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley, in a legendary, unplanned jam session at the Sun studios later known as the "Million Dollar Quartet."

Addiction and collapse

In the late 1950s, under the strain of relentless touring, Cash developed a severe addiction to amphetamines, alcohol and barbiturates. In 1965 a faulty exhaust on his camper caused a wildfire in Los Padres National Forest; that same year he was arrested at El Paso airport attempting to smuggle over a thousand amphetamine pills in from Mexico. In early October 1967 he retreated into a cave near Chattanooga intending to die there. Singer June Carter, whom he had known since 1956, and her family helped him through withdrawal; on 11 November 1967 Cash gave his first sober concert in over a decade.

Folsom Prison and June Carter

On 13 January 1968 Cash recorded the live album At Folsom Prison before the inmates of California's Folsom State Prison – a concert that revived his career and remains one of the most influential live albums in music history. Shortly afterward, on 22 February 1968, he proposed to June Carter live on stage during a concert in London, Ontario; the two married on 1 March 1968 in Franklin, Kentucky. Their son, John Carter Cash, was born on 3 March 1970.

The Johnny Cash Show and the White House

From June 1969 to March 1971 Cash hosted his own television show on ABC, featuring guests including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Stevie Wonder. In 1970 he performed at the White House for President Richard Nixon – and did not play every song the president had requested. In the early 1970s Cash began performing consistently dressed in black; his 1971 song Man in Black gave this stage persona its name.

Decline and comeback

In the late 1970s Cash returned to pills; his family persuaded him into a six-week stay at the Betty Ford Center in December 1983, from which he emerged permanently clean in January 1984. In 1988 he underwent heart bypass surgery, and his contract with Columbia Records lapsed at a time when older country stars were falling out of the mainstream. In 1994 producer Rick Rubin offered him a deal with American Recordings. The stripped-down debut album of that name, and the records that followed it – through to American IV: The Man Comes Around in November 2002 – introduced Cash to a young audience that had never known his earlier work.

Final years and death

From the late 1990s Cash battled serious illness: an autonomic nerve disorder, likely a consequence of diabetes, weakened him steadily, alongside recurring pneumonia and advancing glaucoma. His last major stage appearance came in April 1999 at a tribute concert held in his own honour. June Carter Cash died on 15 May 2003, aged 73, from complications of heart valve surgery; the couple had been married for 35 years. Johnny Cash appeared in public only once more after that, on 5 July 2003. He died on 12 September 2003 at Baptist Hospital in Nashville from respiratory failure, four months after his wife, and was buried beside her at Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Tennessee.

Johnny Cash remained, to the end, a musician who fit into no single category: he sang for prisoners and for an American president, for country traditionalists and for an MTV audience that had grown up with his music. His voice – deep, cracked, unmistakable – still carries songs about guilt, faith, love and redemption, without ever sounding like a sermon.