Johnny Cash. Photo by CBS Television – Wikimedia

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Johnny Cash


 

Johnny Cash was born on February 26, 1932, Kingsland, Arkansas, U.S. He died September 12, 2003. He was an American singer and songwriter whose work broadened the scope of country and western music.

He was born to poor cotton farmers in Kingsland, Arkansas. He was exposed from childhood to the music of the rural South—hymns, folk ballads, and songs of work and lament.  

He learned to play guitar and began writing songs during military service in Germany. He rose to fame during the mid-1950s after four years in the Air Force.

After military service, he settled in Memphis, Tennessee, to pursue a musical career.  By 1957, he was the top recording artist in the country and western field. His music was noted for its stripped-down sound and focus on the working poor and social and political issues.

Cash, who typically wore black clothes and had a rebellious persona, became known as the “Man in Black.”

1. He was drug addict

Johnny Cash had a lot of success in his fifties. He bought a private ranch in which he kept, amongst other things, ostriches. An injury caused by being kicked by an ostrich left him with 5 broken ribs and internal bleeding. He became addicted to morphine after having been prescribed it for his injuries.

June Carter tried her best to keep Cash off of drugs. She encouraged his several rehab treatment admissions.

Cash quit and relapsed on drugs multiple times and was in and out of rehab for over a decade. Eventually, he entered a rehabilitation facility in 1992 for the last time and was able to fully kick the addiction.

2.Cash started a forest fire

Johnny Cash would drive his camper van into the desert when in his drug escapades.  One time an oil leak from the van set the Los Padres National Wildlife Refuge on fire. It destroyed acres of trees and killing all but nine of the endangered condors that lived in the reserve.

He showed no remorse Cash and was subsequently successfully sued by the government for starting the fire.

3.He was a writer

He wrote sketches and poems as a child, stories as a teenager, and continued to write even after joining the Air Force. His first published piece, called “Hey Porter,” appeared in Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, during his Air Force hitch.

He also wrote two autobiographies, Man in Black (1975) and Cash: The Autobiography (1997).

In 1986, he published the novel Man in White, a fictional account of six years in the life of the apostle Paul, including his conversion on the road to Damascus. The novel was an outgrowth of Cash’s ever-deepening interest in Bible study in the early 80s, particularly after he had a relapse into the prescription pill addiction.

4.Cash became an ordained minister

Cash had a reputation as an outlaw. He would smash up hotel rooms, drive his Jeep while hopped up on pills, and have brushes with the police.

Once he remarried to June Carter of the famous Carter Family in 1968, Cash began a decades-long re-examination of his life and re-dedication to his Christian roots.

This studied theology, acquired a degree and became a minister.

He never attempted play roles in the church. However he presided at the wedding of his daughter Karen. Becoming a minister was the utmost expression of the religious feeling that characterized much of his life.

5.He was arrested seven times

Having spent several times in jail, Cash grew sympathetic to the plight of inmates who ran afoul of society.

His most popular and best-selling albums were the live albums he recorded in prisons. Throughout his career, he performed in prisons.

Between the years 1959 to 1968, Cash was arrested for public drunkenness, reckless driving, drug possession, and memorably, picking flowers. He later wrote a song about his experience that became a highlight of his At San Quentin album.

One time he shared a cell with a threatening lumberjack who refused to believe he was Cash. He spent most of the night singing his big hits and gospel songs to pacify his intimidating cellmate.

6.Cash had a side career as a motion picture and TV star

Cass Elliot and Johnny Cash from The Johnny Cash Show. Photo by ABC Television – Wikimedia

Cash aspired to lead and make motion pictures. This aspect of his career never took off in a big way. However he did appear in various movies and TV shows.

He financed and produced a movie in 1973 called Gospel Road: A Story of Jesus. Although the film met with limited success, he considered it his finest cinematic achievement.

In the 70s and 80s, Cash would appear in a few TV movies and guest star on TV. He mostly did them for fun and no longer nurtured ideas of becoming a movie star.

His most significant achievement on TV was The Johnny Cash Show, a show that brought country music to a mainstream audience for the first time.

7.Cash did not write his biggest hit

Johhny Cash and June Carter. Photo by Columbia Records – Wikimedia

In 1963, Anita Carter released a single, “(Love’s) Ring of Fire.” This was a song co-written by her sister, Merle Kilgore. Anita Carter’s version of the song was not a hit.

Cash heard it, decided to add Mexican-style mariachi horns to his arrangement, and released his own version of the song as “Ring of Fire.”

The song was an immediate hit making the pop Top 20. It stayed at #1 for seven consecutive weeks. Cash played the song at almost every concert he performed from then on.

Carter often explained that she wrote “Ring of Fire” about feelings she had for Cash, at a time when both of them were married to other people.

8.Cash did not always wear black

Johnny Cash. Photo by Sun Records – Wikimedia

He wrote a song called “Man in Black” that explained the philosophy behind why he always dressed in black. He however didn’t always perform wearing black clothes and he didn’t always wear black in his day-to-day life.

Originally, he wore black on stage because he and his backing musicians, the Tennessee Two, wanted to have matching outfits and the only garment they had in common was a black shirt. Early pictures of the group show them wearing lighter colors.

In the 70s, with the popularity of the Man in Black image, he began to wear black clothes more consistently, but even in his old age, he could be spotted in a light windbreaker or a denim shirt.

9.He windshield-wiped Faron Young’s ashes

Faron Young. Photo by Albert C. Gannaway – Wikimedia

Faron Young was a good friend of Cash. He was a great music artist in the 50s and 60s. His health began to fail due to a bad case of emphysema. In 1996, depressed about his health and declining career, he committed suicide by shooting himself.

Young was cremated. The Cashes asked for some of Young’s so as to sprinkle in their garden. During the ceremony wind blew some of the ashes onto the windshield of Cash’s nearby parked car.

Cash wasn’t home at the time. When he returned, he cleared his windshield of the ashes, later remarking that Faron’s remains “went back and forth, back and forth, until he was all gone.”

10.Cash died four months after his wife’s death

Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. Photo by Joel Baldwin – Wikimedia

On May 7, 2003, 73-year-old June Carter Cash slipped into a coma after undergoing heart surgery. She died on May 15.

It came as a shock to everyone. It especially hit her husband of 35 years hard. After June died, life was a struggle for him. He wept every night.

He continued to work through the heartbreak and his own deteriorating physical health. He finished recording his album American V: A Hundred Highways late that summer. He was hospitalized soon after, and passed away from diabetes-related respiratory issues on September 12, 2003, at age 71.

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