Johnny Cash: Biography and Much More from Answers.com
Country singer Johnny Cash was nicknamed "The Man in Black," a nod to his wardrobe as well as to the darker themes of his music. He got his start with Sun Records in 1955. Like fellow Sun recording artists Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and , Cash used country and gospel influences in what was called rockabilly, an early form of rock 'n' roll.
He wrote "Folsom Prison Blues" while serving in the Air Force and in 1956 the song became one of his first big hits. In the 1950s and '60s Cash toured relentlessly and had many more hits, employing his rumbling, mournful baritone on tunes like I Walk the Line and Ring of Fire. In 1968 he married of the Carter Family Singers.
Cash later performed with artists as diverse as and . He earned a new audience with his 1994 acoustic album American Recordings and continued to record new songs in spite of ongoing struggles with pneumonia, diabetes and a nervous system disease known as autonomic neuropathy. Cash was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
Two years before his death, in 2001, he received the National Medal of the Arts for artistic excellence.
Johnny's daughter, Roseanne Cash, is also a country singer..
. Johnny Cash was played by in the 2005 biographical film Walk the Line. June Carter Cash was played by .
.. A theatrical musical based on his life, Ring of Fire, opened in 2006.
His official site, now maintained by his estate
Long obituary from the Atlanta Constitution-Journal (requires lengthy, free registration process) Feb 26, 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas
Died: Sep 12, 2003 in Nashville, Tennessee "I Walk the Line," "Folsom Prison Blues," "Get Rhythm"
Johnny Cash was one of the most imposing and influential figures in post-World War II country music. With his deep, resonant baritone and spare, percussive guitar, he had a basic, distinctive sound. Cash didn't sound like Nashville, nor did he sound like honky tonk or rock roll.
He created his own subgenre, falling halfway between the blunt emotional honesty of folk, the rebelliousness of rock roll, and the world weariness of country. Cash's career coincided with the birth of rock roll, and his rebellious attitude and simple, direct musical attack shared a lot of similarities with rock. However, there was a deep sense of history -- as he would later illustrate with his series of historical albums -- that kept him forever tied with country.
And he was one of country music's biggest stars of the '50s and '60s, scoring well over 100 hit singles.
Cash was born and raised in Arkansas, moving to Dyess when he was three. By the time he was 12 years old, he had begun writing his own songs.
He was inspired by the country songs he had heard on the radio. While he was in high school, he sang on the Arkansas radio station KLCN. Cash graduated from college in 1950, moving to Detroit to work in an auto factory for a brief while.
With the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the Air Force. While he was in the Air Force, Cash bought his first guitar and taught himself to play. He began writing songs in earnest, including "Folsom Prison Blues.
" Cash left the Air Force in 1954, married a Texas woman named Vivian Leberto, and moved to Memphis, where he took a radio announcing course at a broadcasting school on the GI Bill. During the evenings, he played country music in a trio that also consisted of guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. The trio occasionally played for free on a local radio station, KWEM, and tried to secure gigs and an audition at Sun Records.
Cash finally landed an audition with Sun Records and its founder, , in 1955. Initially, Cash presented himself as a gospel singer, but turned him down. asked him to come back with something more commercial.
Cash returned with "Hey Porter," which immediately caught ' ear. Soon, Cash released "Cry Cry Cry"/"Hey Porter" as his debut single for Sun. On the single, billed Cash as "Johnny," which upset the singer because he felt it sounded too young; the record producer also dubbed Perkins and Grant as the Tennessee Two.
"Cry Cry Cry" became a success upon its release in 1955, entering the country charts at number 14 and leading to a spot on The Louisiana Hayride, where he stayed for nearly a year. A second single, "Folsom Prison Blues," reached the country Top Five in early 1956 and its follow-up, "I Walk the Line," was number one for six weeks and crossed over into the pop Top 20.
Cash had an equally successful year in 1957, scoring several country hits including the Top 15 "Give My Love to Rose.
" Cash also made his Grand Ole Opry debut that year, appearing all in black where the other performers were decked out in flamboyant, rhinestone-studded outfits. Eventually, he earned the nickname of "The Man in Black." Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album in November of 1957, when Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar hit the stores.
Cash's success continued to roll throughout 1958, as he earned his biggest hit, "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" (number one for ten weeks), as well another number one single, "Guess Things Happen That Way." For most of 1958, Cash attempted to record a gospel album, but Sun refused to allow him to record one. Sun also was unwilling to increase Cash's record royalties.
Both of these were deciding factors in the vocalist's decision to sign with Columbia Records in 1958. By the end of the year, he had released his first single for the label, "All Over Again," which became another Top Five success. Sun continued to release singles and albums of unissued Cash material into the '60s.
"Don't Take Your Guns to Town," Cash's second single for Columbia, was one of his biggest hits, reaching the top of the country charts and crossing over into the pop charts in the beginning of 1959. Throughout that year, Columbia and Sun singles vied for the top of the charts. Generally, the Columbia releases -- "Frankie's Man Johnny," "I Got Stripes," and "Five Feet High and Rising" -- fared better than the Sun singles, but "Luther Played the Boogie" did climb into the Top Ten.
That same year, Cash had the chance to make his gospel record -- Hymns by Johnny Cash -- which kicked off a series of thematic albums that ran into the '70s.
The Tennessee Two became the Tennessee Three in 1960 with the addition of drummer W.S.
Holland. Though he was continuing to have hits, the relentless pace of his career was beginning to take a toll on Cash. In 1959, he had begun taking amphetamines to help him get through his schedule of nearly 300 shows a year.
By 1961, his drug intake had increased dramatically and his work was affected, which was reflected by a declining number of hit singles and albums. By 1963, he had moved to New York, leaving his family behind. He was running into trouble with the law, most notably for starting a forest fire out West.
-- who was the wife of one of Cash's drinking buddies, -- would provide Cash with his return to the top of the charts with "Ring of Fire," which she co-wrote with . "Ring of Fire" spent seven weeks on the top of the charts and was a Top 20 pop hit. Cash continued his success in 1964 as "Understand Your Man" became a number one hit.
However, Cash's comeback was short-lived as he sank further into addiction, and his hit singles arrived sporadically. Cash was arrested in El Paso for attempting to smuggle amphetamines into the country through his guitar case in 1965. That same year, the Grand Ole Opry refused to have him perform and he wrecked the establishment's footlights.
In 1966, his wife Vivian filed for divorce. After the divorce, Cash moved to Nashville. At first, he was as destructive as he ever had been, but he became close friends with , who had divorced .
With 's help, he was able to shake his addictions; she also converted Cash to fundamentalist Christianity. His career began to bounce back as "Jackson" and "Rosanna's Going Wild" became Top Ten hits. Early in 1968, Cash proposed marriage to during a concert; the pair were married that spring.
Also in 1968, Cash recorded and released his most popular album, . Recorded during a prison concert, the album spawned the number one country hit "Folsom Prison Blues," which also crossed over into the pop charts. By the end of the year, the record had gone gold.
The following year, he released a sequel, , which had his only Top Ten pop single, "A Boy Named Sue," which peaked at number three; it also hit number one on the country charts. Cash guested on 's 1969 country-rock album . returned the favor by appearing on the first episode of The Johnny Cash Show, the singer's television program for ABC.
The Johnny Cash Show ran for two years, between 1969 and 1971.
Cash was reaching a second peak of popularity in 1970. In addition to his television show, he performed for President Richard Nixon at the White House, acted with Kirk Douglas in The Gunfight, sang with and the Boston Pops Orchestra, and he was the subject of a documentary film.
His record sales were equally healthy as "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and "Flesh and Blood" were number one hits. Throughout 1971, Cash continued to have hits, including the Top Three "Man in Black." Both Cash and became more socially active in the early '70s, campaigning for the civic rights of Native Americans and prisoners, as well as frequently working with Billy Graham.
In the mid-'70s, Cash's presence on the country charts began to decline, but he continued to have a series of minor hits and the occasional chart-topper like 1976's "One Piece at a Time," or Top Ten hits like the duet "There Ain't No Good Chain Gang" and "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky." Man in Black, Cash's autobiography, was published in 1975. In 1980, he became the youngest inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame.
However, the '80s were a rough time for Cash as his record sales continued to decline and he ran into trouble with Columbia. Cash, , and teamed up to record The Survivors in 1982, which was a mild success. -- a band featuring Cash, , , and -- released their first album in 1985, which was also moderately successful.
The following year, Cash and Columbia Records ended their relationship and he signed with Mercury Nashville. The new label didn't prove to be a success as the company and the singer fought over stylistic direction. Furthermore, country radio had begun to favor more contemporary artists, and Cash soon found himself shut out of the charts.
Nevertheless, he continued to be a popular concert performer.
recorded a second album in 1992, and it was more commercially successful than any of Cash's Mercury records. Around that time, his contract with Mercury ended.
In 1993, he signed a contract with American Records. His first album for the label, , was produced by the label's founder, , and was a stark, acoustic collection of songs. , while not a blockbuster success, revived his career critically and brought him in touch with a younger, rock-oriented audience.
In 1995, the Highwaymen released their third album, The Road Goes on Forever. The following year, Cash released his second album for American Records, , which featured support from Tom Petty the Heartbreakers. His outing was released in 1998, and in the spring of 2000 Cash compiled , a three-disc retrospective focusing on the major songwriting themes dominant throughout his career.
The new studio album appeared later that year.
Health problems plagued Cash throughout the '90s and into the 2000s, but he continued to record with ; their fourth collaboration, , was released in late 2002. The following year, the Mark Romanek-directed video for his cover of ' "Hurt" garnered considerable acclaim and media attention, culminating in an unexpected nomination for video of the year at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Not long after the video sparked numerous stories, his beloved wife died on May 15, 2003, of complications following heart surgery. Four months later, Johnny died of complications from diabetes in Nashville, TN. He was 71.
Five months later, the compilation became a Top Ten hit. in 2006 Lost Highway released the final installment of Cash's legendary "American" recordings, American V: A Hundred Highways, which featured the late singer's last sessions with collaborator . ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: The Pride of Jesse Hallam, A Gunfight, Little Fauss and Big Halsy Emerging into the public's consciousness in 1958, country western performer Johnny Cash hit his first popularity peak in the mid-'60s with his hard-driving prison, train, and "underdog" ballads.
Changing tastes, coupled with his own volatile temperament, resulted in as many lows as highs in the late 20th century, but Cash is a survivor, and was still very much on hand for the country western upsurge of the late '80s. His first film appearances were in shapeless semi-concert pictures like (1963), but he went on to excel as a naturalistic actor in such Westerns as (1971) and (1986). Johnny Cash is shown to best cinematic advantage as "himself" in the 1970 documentary , which features Cash's wife, .
Cash was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Lincoln Center in 1997.
Still hugely popular as the millennuim turned, the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards found Cash's video for the song "Hurt" nominated for no less than six awards. The reflective video ultimately took home the prize for Best Cinematography, cementing Cash's status as an artist whose musical stylings truly knew no boundries.
Shortly thereafter, in early September of 2003, Johnny Cash died of complications of diabetes in Nashville, TN. at the age of 71. His death came just four short months after that of his longtime wife June Carter Cash.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
"The Man in Black" - as Johnny Cash (born 1932) has long been known - has been one of the most influential figures in country music since the 1950s. In the 1990s he broke through to a younger, more alternative audience, performing songs by Soundgarden, Beck, and others.
He has also reached a substantial audience of rock fans, thanks to his outlaw persona, deep, authoritative voice, and dark songs like "Folsom Prison Blues.
" After enjoying a string of hits in the 1950s and even greater success in the late 1960s, when he was briefly the best-selling recording artist in the world, he saw his edgy, close-to-the-bone style go out of fashion. Even as his 1980s work was neglected, however, he appeared before adoring throngs worldwide. In 1994, well past his sixtieth birthday, he came roaring back with a sparsely recorded album that ranked among his best work and earned him a Grammy Award.
"Can you name anyone in this day and age who is as cool as Johnny Cash?" asked Rolling Stone rhetorically. "No, you can't.
"
J. R. Cash was born into an impoverished Arkansas family in 1932 and grew up working in the cotton fields.
His Baptist upbringing meant that the music he heard was almost entirely religious, and the hymns sung by country greats like the and Ernest Tubb reached him on the radio and made an indelible impression. "From the time I was a little boy," he recollected to Steve Pond in a 1992 Rolling Stone interview, "I never had any doubt that I was gonna be singing on the radio." His brother Roy formed a band when he was young, increasing John's determination to do the same one day.
Cash had no idea, though, what path would lead him to his destiny. He held a few odd jobs after graduating from Dyess High School in 1950, but eventually opted for a four-year stay in the . Stationed in Germany, he endured what he would later describe as a lonely, miserable period.
Fortunately, he learned to play the guitar and began turning the poetry he'd been writing into song lyrics. After seeing a powerful film about Folsom Prison, he sat down to write what would become one of his signature songs - "Folsom Prison Blues." His empathy for prisoners and other marginalized people would consistently inform his work.
With his powerful position in a generally conservative musical world, he also championed rights and other social ills.
Cash left the military in 1954 and married Vivian Liberto, whom he met before joining the air force; they had corresponded throughout his tour of duty. The two lived in Memphis, Tennessee, and he earned a meager living selling appliances.
"I was the worst salesman in the world," Cash confided to Pond. Nonetheless, he summoned the passion to sell himself as a singer, playing with a gospel group and canvassing radio stations for chances to perform on the air.
Eventually Cash was granted an audience with trail-blazing producer Sam Phillips, at whose Sun Studios the likes of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and others made recordings that would help change the course of popular music.
Phillips was a hard sell, but Cash won the opportunity to record his first single; "Cry, Cry, Cry" became a number 14 hit in 1955, and Cash's group played some local gigs with Presley. Pond describes Cash's early records as "stark, unsettling and totally original. The instrumentation was spare, almost rudimentary" featuring bass and lead guitar supplied by his Tennessee Two and Cash's rhythm guitar, which had "a piece of paper stuck underneath the top frets to give it a scratchy sound.
"
In 1956 Cash left his sales job and recorded the hits "Folsom Prison Blues" - containing the legendary and much-quoted lyric "I shot a man in just to watch him die" - and "I Walk the Line." The next year saw the release of the one album released by Sun before his departure from the label, Johnny Cash With His Hot Blue Guitar. He and the Tennessee Two left the label after a string of hits and signed with CBS/Columbia Records in 1958.
Singles he recorded on Sun at Phillips's insistence just before his contract lapsed continued to chart for years afterward, much to Cash's chagrin. Yet he charted on CBS as well with a bevy of singles and such albums as Blood, Sweat and Tears and .
In the midst of his success, however, Cash grew apart from Vivian and their children.
He grew dependent on drink and drugs and became increasingly dissolute. Such misery no doubt contributed force to such work as 1963's "Ring of Fire," which was co-written by June Carter, who also performed on the track. Cash and Carter - of the famed Carter family - became increasingly close, both professionally and personally.
His marriage collapsed in 1966 and he nearly died of an overdose. Cash has long attributed his subsequent rehabilitation to two factors: Carter and God. He and Carter wed in 1968 and later had a son, John.
In any event, Cash expanded his repertoire as the 1960s unfolded, incorporating folk music and protest themes. He recorded songs by folk-rock avatar Bob Dylan and up-and-comers like Kris Kristofferson, but by the end of the decade, driven perhaps by his generally out-of-control life, his hits came largely from novelty songs like Shel Silverstein's "A Boy Named Sue." Even so, by 1969 Cash was the best-selling recording artist alive, outselling even rock legends The Beatles.
That year saw him win two for Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, a live album for a worshipful audience of prisoners that led, perhaps inevitably, to Johnny Cash at . From 1969 to 1971 he hosted a smash variety program for television, The Johnny Cash Show.
The 1970s saw more career triumphs, notably a Grammy-winning duet with Carter on Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter," a command performance for President Richard Nixon, acting roles in film and on television, a best-selling autobiography, and several more hit albums, including Man in Black, the title of which would become his permanent show business moniker.
While this label has been associated with his "outlaw" image, he and his bandmates originally wore black because they had nothing else that matched; besides, as Cash informed Entertainment Weekly, "black is better for church."
In 1980 Cash was inducted into the Country Music Association Hall of Fame. He had become a music hero worldwide, appearing in eastern Europe before the fall of the Soviet empire and praising those who agitated for democracy.
Yet during the 1980s, Cash became less and less of a priority for his record label; country music had come to be dominated by younger, pop-inclined artists who favored slick production. He continued to struggle with drugs, eventually checking into the Betty Ford clinic. There, he has said, he experienced a religious epiphany.
Cash wrote a novel, Man in White, about the life of the apostle Paul, and continued indulging his eclectic musical tastes, recording songs by mavericks like Elvis Costello. Alongside Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings, he participated in a collaborative album, The Highwayman; he also joined Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and country-rock giant Roy Orbison for a reunion recording called Class of '55 (Memphis Rock Roll Homecoming), which enjoyed solid sales. A daughter by his first marriage, Rosanne, became a country star in her own right; Johnny Cash, himself, even as his albums sold poorly, was firmly established as a living legend of country music and a profound influence on rock and roll.
In 1992 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and 1993 saw him contribute a vocal performance to Zooropa, by rock superstars U2.
Yet Cash tired of record-business priorities. "I kept hearing about demographics [market studies of consumers] until it was coming out my ears," the singer told Christopher John Farley of Newsweek.
The first label representative who seemed to understand him after this bitter experience was, ironically enough, best known for his work with hardcore rap, metal, and alternative acts. Rick Rubin had founded his own label, first called Def American and later changed to American Recordings, to support acts he believed in. Though not intimately acquainted with Cash's work, he admired the singer's artistic persona.
"I don't see him as a country act," Rubin told Farley. "I would say he embodies rock 'n' roll. He's an outlaw figure, and that is the essence of what rock 'n' roll is.
"
Rubin's appeal to Cash lay in his idea for a record. After seeing one of the country legend's performances, the producer "said he'd love to hear just me and my guitar," Cash told Los Angeles Times writer Robert Hilburn. These were the words the veteran artist had waited decades to hear; he had suggested such a minimal approach many times to country producers, only to have it vetoed immediately on commercial grounds.
Rubin simply set up a tape machine in his Hollywood living room and allowed Cash to do what he does best.
Rubin "was a lot like Sam [Phillips], actually," Cash ventured to Hilburn. "We talked a lot about the approach we were going to take, and he said, 'You know, we are not going to think about time or money.
I want you to come out as much as you can." Without such constraints - which had clipped Cash's wings in his Nashville years - he was free to experiment with a wide range of material. Recording over 70 songs, mostly at Rubin's house but also at his own cabin in Tennessee and at the trendy nightspot The Viper Room, Cash had a valedictory experience.
He later told Time' s Farley that the work was his "dream album."
The material was culled to 13 tracks, including traditional songs, some Cash originals, and compositions by such diverse modern songwriters as Kristofferson, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Nick Lowe, Glenn Danzig, and Loudon Wainright III. The leadoff track, "Delia's Gone," grimly describes the murder of a faithless woman; Rubin seemed to invite comparisons between Cash and the controversial metal and rap acts on his label.
Titled American Recordings, the album was released in 1994; Johnny Cash was 62 years old. The liner notes contained testimonials from both Rubin and Cash. "I think we made a brutally honest record," the producer declared.
"Working with Rick," Cash averred, "all the experimenting, kinda spread me out and expanded my range of material. This is the best I can do as an artist, as a solo artist, this is it."
Critics seemed to agree.
Karen Schoemer of Mirabella praised it as "a daring, deceptively simple album" that "operates on a mythic scale, which suits someone who's always been larger than life. What is breathtaking is Cash's ability to analyze his aging self, and the failures, weaknesses, strengths and wisdoms that time bestows." Village Voice critic Doug Simmons praised it as "fiercely intimate," while Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis called it "unquestionably one of his best albums," one which "will earn him a time of well-deserved distinction in which his work will reach an eager new audience.
"
While American Recordings didn't take the charts by storm, it restored Johnny Cash's sense of mission. It also earned him a 1995 Grammy Award for best contemporary folk album. He played a sold-out engagement in Los Angeles just before his nomination, before an audience studded with such music stars as Tom Petty, Sheryl Crow, and Dwight Yoakam.
And in September of 1996 he played a set at the CMJ Music Marathon in Manhattan, previewing songs from his album Unchained as well as performing cover versions from younger artists such as Beck and Soundgarden.
About the prospect of an "eager new audience" Cash himself - who seriously considered playing at the alternative-rock festival known as Lollapalooza before declining the offer - was philosophical. "I no longer have a grandiose attitude about my music being a powerful force for change," he told Entertainment Weekly.
Even so, he allowed, "I think [today's youth] sees the hypocrisy in government, the rotten core of social ills and poverty and prejudice, and I'm not afraid to say that's where the trouble is. A lot of people my age are." One thing remained constant, as he told Rolling Stone: "I feel like if I can just go onstage with my guitar and sing my songs, I can't do no wrong no matter where I am.
"
Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, Rock Movers , Billboard, 1991.
Entertainment Weekly, February 18, 1994, pp. 57-67.
Hits, May 2, 1994.
Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1994, pp. F1, F5.
Mirabella, July 1994.
People, May 16, 1994.
Rolling Stone, December 10, 1992, pp.
118-25, 201; May 5, 1994, p. 14; May 19, 1994, pp. 97-98; June 30, 1994, p.
35.
Time, May 9, 1994, pp. 72-74.
Village Voice, May 18, 1994.
Johnny Cash (born J.R.
Cash, , – , ) was an influential Cash was known for his deep and distinctive voice, the boom-chick-a-boom or "freight train" sound of his backing band, and his dark clothing and demeanor, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black." He started all his concerts with the simple introduction "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
Much of Cash's music, especially that of his later career, echoed themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption.
His and " ". He also recorded several humorous songs, such as such as " "; and various train-related songs, such as " ".
musicians in the history of American popular music.
"The Man in Black" was born J. R. Cash in , and raised in .
By age five, he was working in the cotton fields, singing along with his family as they worked. The family farm was flooded on at least one occasion, which later inspired him to write the song "Five Jack died in a tragic on-the-job accident, working a high school shop , in struggles during the shaped him as a person and inspired many of his songs, especially those about other people facing personal struggles.
Cash's early memories were dominated by and radio.
He began playing guitar, taught by his mother and a childhood friend,and writing songs as a young boy, and in high school sang on a local radio station. Decades later, he would release an album of traditional gospel songs, called "My Mother's Hymn Book". Traditional radio program, as performed by , influenced him greatly.
citation needed] given the name J.R. because his parents could not agree on a name, only on initials.
(Giving children such names was a relatively common practice at the time.) He enlisted as a radio operator in the United States Air Force. The military would not accept just initials as his name, so he adopted John R.
Cash as his legal name. When he signed for Sun Records in 1955, he took "Johnny" Cash as a stage name. His friends and in-laws generally called him John, and his blood relatives often still called him by his birth name, J.
R.
, Germany. There, he founded his first band, the Landsberg Barbarians.
After his term of service ended, Cash married , whom he met while training at Brooks. In 1954, he moved to , , where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. At night, he played with guitarist studio, hoping to garner a recording contract.
After auditioning for , singing mainly gospel tunes, Phillips told him to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell." Cash eventually won over Phillips with new songs delivered in his early frenetic style. His first recordings at Sun, " " and " ," were Johnny Cash and his second wife, June Carter Cash
Cash's next record, " ," made the country Top 5, and " " was No.
1 on the country charts, making it into the pop charts Top 20. 1957. In , Cash became the first Sun artist to release a .
Although he was Sun's most consistently best-selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label. had already left Sun, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on . The following year, Cash left the label to sign a lucrative offer with , where his single "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" would become one of his biggest hits.
It was during one of these tours that he had met , whom he would later marry in 1968.
As his career was taking off in the early 1960s, Cash began drinking heavily and became addicted to and . For a brief time, Cash shared an Cash used the uppers to stay awake during tours.
Friends joked about his "nervousness" and erratic behavior, many ignoring the signs of his worsening drug addiction.
Although in many ways spiraling out of control, his frenetic creativity was still delivering hits. His song " " was a major hit, reaching No.
1 on the country charts and entering the Top 20 on the charts. The song was written by June Carter and and originally performed by Carter's sister, but the signature -style horn arrangement was provided by Cash, who says it came to him in a dream. The Cash sometimes spoke of his erratic, drug-induced behavior with some degree of bemused detachment.
In one incident, his truck caught fire, triggering a forest fire that burnt down half of a national forest. When the judge asked Cash why he did it, Cash said in his then-flippant style, "I didn't do it, my truck did, and it's dead so you can't question it." It burned 508 acres. The federal government sued him and was awarded $125,127. Johnny eventually settled the case and paid $82,000.
To this date, Johnny Cash is the only person ever sued by the government for starting a forest fire. Although he carefully cultivated a romantic image, he never served a sentence, although he landed in jail seven times for , each stay lasting a single night. His most serious and well-known run-in with the law occurred while on tour in 1965, when he was arrested by a squad smuggling amphetamines inside his guitar case.
(One report said that he was carrying a total of 1,163 pills). Because they were prescription drugs rather than illegal narcotics, he received a .
late at night onto private property to pick flowers.
(This incident gave the spark for the song "Starkville City Jail", which he spoke about on his live At San Quentin prison album.)
worst at this point, however, and his destructive behavior led to a from his first wife and canceled performances.
While an airman in West Germany, Cash saw the B-movie (1951), which inspired him to write an early draft of one of his most famous songs, "Folsom Prison Cash felt great compassion for prisoners.
He began performing concerts at various prisons starting in the late 1950s. ( ) and ( ).
The Folsom Prison record was introduced by a powerful rendition of his classic "Folsom Prison Blues," while the reached No.
1 on the country charts and No. 2 on the US Top Ten pop charts. The AM versions of the latter contained a couple of profanities which were blipped out in that more-sensitive era.
The modern CD versions are unedited and uncensored, and thus also longer than the original vinyl albums, giving a good flavor of what the concerts were like, with their highly receptive audiences of convicts.
Apart from his performances at Folsom Prison and San Quentin, and various other U.S.
correctional facilities, Cash also performed at Österåkeranstalten (The Österåker Prison) north of Stockholm, Sweden in 1972. The recording was released in 1973. Between the songs Cash can be heard speaking Swedish which was greatly appreciated by the inmates.
After he quit using drugs in the early 1970s, Cash rediscovered his faith, taking an " " in Evangel Temple, a small church in the Nashville area. Cash chose this church over many other larger, celebrity churches in the Nashville area because he said he was just another man there, and not a celebrity.
Cash advocated at his July 1972 meeting with U.
S. president .
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