“All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate… I choose love. ”- Johnny Cash
He was born J. R. Cash in Kingsland, Arkansas. His parents named him "J.R." because they said they could not agree on any name, only on the initials. During service with the United States Air Force, the Army could not receive J.R. as a name, he, therefore, adopted the name John R. Cash. In 1955, he chose the pseudonym Johnny Cash.
As a child, he had to work on a cotton plantation. His family's personal and social problems during the economic crisis were reflected in some of his lyrics.
In high school, he sang on the KLCNV radio station, did not continue his studies after high school, and instead began working at a Detroit automaker. In 1950 he joined the army, to the security forces of the United States Air Force. He also met the Catholic Vivian Liberto.
After returning from Germany in 1954, Johnny and Vivian married. They had four daughters together.
After moving to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1954, Johnn Cash and his wife Vivian made a living as a door-to-door salesman. In the evenings, however, he began playing with The Tennessee Two (later renamed The Tennessee Three). In 1955, producer Sam Phillips released his first recordings "Hey Porter" and "Cry, Cry, Cry" on Sun Records, which were so successful that Cash was able to pursue a career as a singer.
The "Folsom Prison Blues" record topped the Top 5 in the country charts, and his big hit "I Walk the Line" reached number one in the country charts in 1956. The song "Home of the Blues" followed in 1957. Cash's career began to grow rapidly. In the same year, he became the first Sun Records artist to record a full-length record, performing at the Grand Ole Opry, Ed Sullivan's show, and Carnegie Hall. In 1958, he left the small record company Sun and made a lucrative deal with Columbia Records, which promised him $ 50,000 to sign. There, his single "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" also became one of his other hits.
With his growing popularity in the 1960s, his drug problems also began. He succumbed to alcohol and became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. He used stimulants during the concert to stay awake. Drugs had a negative impact on his behavior. He was often nervous and reacted unpredictably. He later admitted that he had tried almost every drug.
In the early 1960s, he performed with the Carter Family, which also included Anita, June, and Helen Carter.
The growing addiction so far, however, has not affected Cash's creativity. His performance of the hit "Ring of Fire" was a success both in the country charts and in the pop charts. In the mid-1960s, he released several concept albums such as Bitter Tears (1964) and Ballads of the True West (1965) at the same time, however, his drug addiction peaked, leading to the cancellation of some concerts but also divorce from his first wife in 1967
Cash had previously toured with the Carter Family, then sang the duet "Jackson" with June Carter in 1967, which was awarded a Grammy Award.
Cash ceased drug use in 1968. June, Maybelle's mother, and Ezra Carter's father moved to his residence for a month to help him fight addiction. On January 22, Johnny asked June for a hand on stage, which agreed, and on March 1, they were married.
In the late 1960s, Cash began touring in prisons, and these concerts were recorded on the live albums At Folsom Prison (1968) and At San Quentin (1969). The San Quentin recording features the hit "A Boy Named Sue" by Shel Silverstein. In addition to U.S. prisons, Cash visited the Österåker Prison in Sweden in 1972. In 1973, the record På Österåker (In Österåker) was released, among the songs Cash speaks Swedish.
From 1969 to 1971, Cash had his television show, The Johnny Cash Show, on ABC. His guests were Neil Young, Louis Armstrong, James Taylor, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan. Dylan met Cash in the mid-1960s and later became friends and sang a duet together on Dylan's country album Nashville Skyline. Another artist helped by The Johnny Cash Show in his career was budding lyricist Kris Kristofferson.
The intertwining of rock and roll, rock, folk, country, and soul that took place in the show significantly influenced the further development of popular music.
Cash and his band originally wore black because it was the only matching color their costumes had. From the beginning of his career, he also wore colorful clothes, but he liked black both on and off the stage. Except for political reasons, black has always been his favorite color. Dark uniforms are still known among American sailors, whose shirts, ties, and trousers are completely black, known as "Johnny Cashes".
Cash's popularity began to decline in the mid-1970s, yet he sold 1.3 million copies of his first autobiography, Man in Black, which was published in 1975. The second autobiography, Cash: The Autobiography, was published in 1997.
His friendship with preacher Billy Graham led to a collaboration on a film about Jesus Christ called The Gospel Road. Cash was a co-creator of the script and also a narrator. During the 1970s, he also appeared in CBS's annual Christmas special. He starred in the Columbo series and appeared with his wife in one of the episodes of the Little House on the Prairie series. In the miniseries North and South, he played the slavery fighter, John Brown.
Although his recordings did not reach such popularity in the 1980s, he became the youngest member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. In the mid-1980s, he performed with Waylon Jenings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson as The Highwaymen. Two hit albums (Highwayman and Highwayman 2) date from this period.
Cash has appeared in several television movies. In 1981, it was The Pride of Jesse Hallam dealing with adult illiteracy. In 1983, he appeared as a sheriff in Murder In Coweta County with Andy Griffith - the film was based on a real criminal case.
Cash was not happy with Columbia Records' marketing, so he deliberately sang the "horrible" "Chicken in Black" song about the hen, which implants Johnny Cash's brain and starts singing his songs, and Cash, on the other hand, gets the brain of a bank robber and raids banks. Paradoxically, the song became more commercially successful than his other songs at the time. He eventually left Columbia Records and returned to Sun Studios.
In 1986, after returning to Sun Studios in Memphis, he teamed up with Roy Orbinson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins to create the album Class of '55.
That same year, he published his only novel, Man in White, a book about the Apostle Paul.
When Cash left Columbia Records, he had a contract with Mercury Records between 1987 and 1991. In 1991, he sang lead vocals for the Christian punk band One Bad Pig in a cover version of his song "Man in Black" on the album I Scream Sunday and became an honorary member of the band, but his comeback came in the 1990s. At that time, it also became popular among younger listeners who were not interested in the country when he appeared in 1993 in "The Wanderer", a song from the album Zooropa by the Irish rock band U2.
Producer Rick Rubin (Danzig, Slayer, or Beastie Boys) contacted the aging singer, who was not with any record company, and offered him a contract with his company American Recordings. In 1994, Cash recorded American Recordings in his living room under Rubin's direction, accompanied by his guitar. The album contained cover versions of contemporary artists selected by Rubin (including Glenn Danzig and Tom Waits) and met with favorable criticism and commercial success. Cash won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album for them. In 1996, he continued the success of American Recordings with the album Unchained, accompanied by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The album won a Grammy for Best Country Album.
Cash has appeared with his wife in several series - such as Dr. Quinn. He also lent his voice to the talking coyote in the 9th episode of the 8th series of The Simpsons (Homer's Mystical Journey). In 1997, he also published another autobiography, Cash: The Autobiography.
He became seriously ill in 1997, and his health problems were caused by diabetes. Due to illness, he had to reduce his performance. In 1998, he developed pneumonia and was hospitalized. The disease significantly affected his latest albums American III: Solitary Man (2000) and American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), which have a darker touch than the first two albums at American Recordings.
Cash's wife June Carter Cash died on May 15, 2003, at the age of seventy-three. June told her husband to continue working, so he continued to give concerts. He appeared at the last concert on July 5, 2003.
Johnny Cash died less than four months after his wife, on September 12, 2003, at Baptist Hospital in Neshville, Tennessee, as a result of severe diabetes complications. He was buried next to his wife in Hendersonville, Tennessee.