A 1956 Sun single promising fidelity, sung across five key changes with paper woven into the guitar strings (1956)
"I Walk the Line" — he hums to find each new key.
Popular music · Folk & country
Johnny Cash
1932–2003 · American
Country, rockabilly and folk — Sun, Columbia and American Recordings
Johnny Cash was the Man in Black, an Arkansas cotton farmer's son who recorded for Sun in Memphis alongside Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins and spent five decades straddling country, rockabilly, gospel and folk. The prison albums recorded at Folsom and San Quentin in 1968 and 1969 remade his career, and a second remaking came in the 1990s when Rick Rubin stripped him back to voice and guitar for the American Recordings series, which ended with the video for "Hurt", filmed months before his death.
How to spot them
- ▸The bass-baritone voice, the black clothes, the greeting 'Hello, I'm Johnny Cash'
- ▸The boom-chicka-boom of the Tennessee Two, from Luther Perkins's muted guitar
- ▸Sun Records and the Million Dollar Quartet; then Columbia; then Rick Rubin
- ▸Prison concerts, June Carter, and a career-ending song that was a cover of a nineties industrial rock record
Songs & albums
A 1955 song about a man who shot another in Reno just to watch him die, later performed to the inmates it described (1955)
"Folsom Prison Blues".
A 1963 single with mariachi trumpets, written by the woman who would become his second wife (1963)
"Ring of Fire", by June Carter and Merle Kilgore.
A 1968 live album recorded before the inmates of a Californian jail, which revived a flagging career (1968)
At Folsom Prison.
A 1969 live album from a second Californian jail, containing a Shel Silverstein novelty about a boy's name (1969)
At San Quentin, with "A Boy Named Sue".
A 1994 comeback album of voice and acoustic guitar, produced by a hip-hop and metal producer (1994)
American Recordings, produced by Rick Rubin.
A 2002 cover of a Nine Inch Nails song, its video a farewell filmed in his closed museum (2002)
"Hurt", from American IV: The Man Comes Around.
A television variety show taped at the Ryman Auditorium from 1969, which put Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell before country audiences (1969)
The Johnny Cash Show, on ABC.
Quick-fire facts
- •Born J. R. Cash on 26 February 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas; he adopted the name John on enlisting in the US Air Force
- •He signed to Sam Phillips's Sun Records in 1955, and took part in the Million Dollar Quartet session with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis in December 1956
- •His backing band, the Tennessee Two — later Three — gave him the 'boom-chicka-boom' sound built on Luther Perkins's muted guitar
- •He married June Carter in 1968, having proposed on stage in London, Ontario
- •At Folsom Prison (1968) was recorded at Folsom State Prison, California, in two shows on 13 January
- •He is one of very few artists inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1980), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977)
- •The American Recordings series with Rick Rubin ran from 1994 and continued posthumously
- •June Carter Cash died on 15 May 2003; he died on 12 September 2003, aged 71
- •The 2005 biopic Walk the Line won Reese Witherspoon an Academy Award for playing June Carter
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Johnny Cash — Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee
- Robert Hilburn — Johnny Cash: The Life