Johnny Cash
He was born J.R. Cash ('John' came later, and 'Johnny' was an
invention of Sun Records chief Sam Phillips) in Kingsland,
Arkansas, one of seven children in a family that worked a small
farm.
He picked cotton as a child, tried his hand on a car
assembly line, then joined the air force.
After his discharge, he married Vivian Liberto, moved to
Memphis, sold appliances and in 1955 caught Sam Phillips' ear and
recorded tunes like Hey Porter and Cry Cry Cry.
When
Johnny Cash first knocked on the door at Sun Studios, he offered
his services as a gospel singer. Phillips said he couldn't sell
gospel, so the country icon started out as a rock & roller.
His records were stark, unsettling and totally original. The
instrumentation was sparse, almost rudimentary: All you heard was
bassist Marshall Grant, guitarist Luther Perkins, and Cash himself
playing rhythm guitar, a piece of paper stuck underneath the top
frets to give it a scratchy sound.
In 1958, Cash left Sun in a battle for money and artistic
control.
At Columbia Records he recorded country songs, folk
songs, pop songs, gospel songs and a series of audacious concept
albums about working men, the West, mistreatment of Native
Americans and the like.
During this time he was also gripped by a vicious addiction to
amphetamines and barbiturates. He consumed prodigious quantities,
missed shows and recording sessions, left tales of excess and
destruction in his wake, wrecked every car he drove and landed in
jail seven times (albeit for overnight stays). His marriage broke
up and his records became sillier.
Then, slowly, he turned it around. The religious faith he'd
had since childhood helped. So did his growing friendship with
June Carter, from country music's seminal Carter Family. He
gradually kicked pills. He also married Carter and hit his
artistic stride with Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968).
A year after his famous and groundbreaking Folsom prison gig,
Johnny Cash returned to the penitentiary circuit, this time to
California's foreboding San Quentin (at which the Number Two hit A
Boy Named Sue was recorded).
Between 1968 and 1971, Cash was as big a star as anyone in
music. His glory days seemed to pass after that, but the good work
continued, if more sporadically.
A three decade relationship with Columbia soured and ended in
the mid-80s, and Cash moved to PolyGram, where he continued
releasing albums which were all fine but never sold much.
In his later years, Cash was often in pain because of a jaw
problem that began with an impacted wisdom tooth and ended,
several misdiagnoses and botched procedures later, with a platinum
plate permanently holding his broken jaw together.
Johnny Cash died on 12 September 2003.
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