Johnny Cash
Classic Country
Outlaw Country
Johnny Cash was one of the most influential American musicians of the twentieth century, a baritone-voiced storyteller whose spare, freight-train sound bridged country, rockabilly, gospel, and folk. Known as “The Man in Black,” he sang for prisoners, sinners, and the downtrodden across a five-decade career, and is one of a select few artists enshrined as a performer in both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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- Born J. R. Cash on February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas, to cotton farmers Ray and Carrie Cash; in 1935 the family relocated to the New Deal resettlement colony of Dyess, Arkansas, where he worked the fields and absorbed the gospel hymns and Delta radio that shaped his music.
- After graduating high school he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1950, serving much of his four-year hitch in Landsberg, West Germany, as a Morse-code intercept operator—where he bought his first guitar and wrote an early version of “Folsom Prison Blues.”
- Discharged in 1954, he settled in Memphis and formed the Tennessee Two with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, whose stark boom-chicka-boom rhythm became his signature; the trio auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records, who signed Cash in 1955.
- His Sun singles “Cry, Cry, Cry” and “Hey, Porter” (1955), followed by “Folsom Prison Blues” (1955) and the crossover hit “I Walk the Line” (1956), established him as a defining voice of the label’s rockabilly moment alongside Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
- In 1958 he left Sun for Columbia Records, where a broader canvas produced concept records and enduring songs including “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” (1958) and the folk-tinged album Ride This Train (1960).
- Amphetamine addiction destabilized much of his 1960s, yet the decade also yielded “Ring of Fire” (1963), co-written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore and lifted by mariachi-style horns, which topped the country chart for weeks and became one of his best-loved recordings.
- He revitalized his career with At Folsom Prison (1968), recorded live before some 2,000 inmates, and At San Quentin (1969), whose novelty hit “A Boy Named Sue” reached No. 2 on the pop chart and won a Grammy.
- He married June Carter of the Carter Family in 1968 after proposing onstage in London, Ontario; the couple performed and recorded together for the rest of their lives, winning Grammys for the duets “Jackson” (1967) and “If I Were a Carpenter” (1970).
- From 1969 to 1971 he hosted The Johnny Cash Show on ABC, a nationally televised variety program that spotlighted roots artists from Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell to Louis Armstrong and brought his outlaw-preacher persona to a mass audience.
- A committed Christian who also chronicled the outsider, he recorded gospel throughout his career and narrated and starred in the 1973 film Gospel Road, while his 1971 anthem “Man in Black” explained the somber wardrobe that became his emblem.
- In 1980 he became the youngest living inductee to that point into the Country Music Hall of Fame; he had earlier entered the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977) and would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
- He co-founded the country supergroup The Highwaymen in 1985 with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson, scoring a No. 1 country hit with their recording of Jimmy Webb’s “Highwayman.”
- Dropped by his labels amid the 1980s Nashville shift, he staged a landmark late-career revival with producer Rick Rubin, beginning with the stark solo-acoustic American Recordings (1994), which won the 1995 Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
- The American series continued into his final years; his haunting 2002 cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” from American IV: The Man Comes Around, and its acclaimed music video introduced him to a new generation and won a Grammy and CMA Award.
- Across his life he earned a dozen competitive Grammy Awards plus the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1999), the Kennedy Center Honors (1996), and the National Medal of Arts (2001).
- His wife June died on May 15, 2003; Johnny Cash died just under four months later, on September 12, 2003, in Nashville, Tennessee, from complications of diabetes. The 2005 biopic Walk the Line and continuing posthumous releases have cemented his standing as an American cultural touchstone.
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Unearthed2003
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At Folsom Prison1968 · Columbia Records
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Single (Ring of Fire / I’d Still Be There)1963 · Columbia
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Johnny CashPlayed on recordings with Johnny Cash
