The bitter lyrics, written from the point of view of the inmates (“San Quentin, I hate every inch of you”) nearly sparked an insurrection, and Cash was tempted: “He realized that all he had to say was, ‘Let’s go!’ and there would have been a full-scale riot,” says producer Bob Johnston.ĩ. and that the singer still used drugs afterward.Īt Cash’s second major prison concert, at San Quentin in 1969, he debuted two versions of a new song named after the jail. But Hilburn notes that the cave would have been underwater on the day Cash often cited. Claiming God’s intervention, he found his way back out, where June and Cash’s mother were waiting for him with a basket of food, whereupon he swore off the pills. Though Cash’s marriage to June Carter was cast in later years as one for the ages, when they began their affair (while Cash was still married to Vivian), some friends saw June as a manipulator: “an early country equivalent of Yoko Ono in John Lennon’s world,” as Hilburn writes.įor years Cash claimed that he quit taking pills after crawling deep into a cave on the Tennessee River and lying down to die. His storybook marriage to June wasn’t always so. Early in his career, fellow acts teased him about it, calling him the “Undertaker.”Ħ. Though Cash wrote the signature song “Man in Black” to explain the social conscience behind his wardrobe choices – “just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back” – in fact he took to black simply because it was easier to keep clean on long tours. He and his first wife, Vivian, named their first daughter, Rosanne, after Cash’s nicknames for Vivian’s boobs: Rose and Anne.Ĭash’s first Number One hit, “I Walk the Line,” widely interpreted as an oath of loyalty to his young bride, had a double meaning for him: he also thought of it as a sneaky way to put a little God into his music, after Sun’s Sam Phillips told him he wasn’t interested in recording any spiritual songs.
Later, he blamed the incident on the bigotry of rural Arkansas, where he was raised, and told a friend, “I never, ever disliked blacks.” Cash, well known for his advocacy on behalf of minorities (especially Native Americans), was involved in an ugly name-calling incident over a black soldier walking with a white woman. Johnny Cash's 'Cocaine Blues': Listen to a Never-Before-Heard Live VersionĬash gave his friend Carl Perkins the idea for the rock & roll classic “Blue Suede Shoes” based on the flashy wardrobe of an African-American Air Force colleague stationed in Germany. Think you know Johnny Cash? The book is stuffed with warts-and-all revelations that might surprise you, and will certainly boost the singer’s profile as a man of many contradictions. Johnny Cash: The Life, published this week, covers Cash’s monumental highs and bottomless lows in unprecedented detail. See Where Johnny Cash Ranks on Our List of the 100 Greatest Singersīut when the former Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn first spoke with Cash’s longtime manager, Lou Robin, about writing a comprehensive biography about this quintessential American figure, Robin told him that 80 percent of Cash’s story had yet to be told. Fans of the Man in Black’s powerful tales of sin and redemption, succinctly captured in the three discs of a 2000 box set ( Love, God, Murder), likely know much of the singer’s story, from the tragic loss of his older brother, Jack, to Cash’s epic struggle with amphetamine addiction and his late-life resurgence after an extended period wandering in the creative wilderness. Ten years after his death, the Johnny Cash legend still looms large: from Sun Records and Folsom Prison to Rick Rubin, from “I Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire” to “A Boy Named Sue,” from his own autobiographies ( Man in Black and Cash) to the Hollywood version of his life, starring Joaquin Phoenix.
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