Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

    Johnny Cash is most known for his influence in country music but he has sang many other genres. He has sang rockabilly, rock and roll, blues, folk, and gospel. Being able to crossover so many genres has given Cash the opportunity to be inducted in to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

    Cash grew up singing with his family in the cotton fields. He started singing gospel and his mother helped teach him how to play guitar. He sang gospel music on the local radio. In 1950, he put his career on hole and enlisted in the Air Force. While serving he worked as a Morse code intercept operator for Soviet Army transmission. He was the first person to pick up the news of the death of Joseph Stalin through radio transmission. In 1954, Cash was honorably discharged and returned to Texas, where he originally met his first wife. They were married shortly after his return, then they moved to Memphis.

   Cash auditioned at Sun Records studio singing gospel music. He was told by Sam Phillips to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell." He returned quickly with more rockabilly sound. He recorded "Hey Porter" in 1955 at Sun. A year later he was working in the studio at the same time as Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, when Elvis Presley walked in for a visit. The four men started a jam session. During the session Phillips left the tapes going and later released the recordings under the name Million Dollar Quartet.

   His next big hit was "Folsom Prison Blues." Cash soon left Sun Records and moved to Columbia Records. His first song released through this company was "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" became one of his biggest hits. In the 1960s he toured with the Carter Family which included his future wife, June Carter. 

   In the late 1950s, he began doing drugs and drinking heavily. For a short time he lived with Waylon Jennings who was also addicted to amphetamines. Cash used drugs to keep awake for concerts. Many people he worked with saw the signs of his drug addiction but ignored them. A mixture of the drugs and him cheating lead to his divorce with his first wife in the mid 1960s. As his career grew his drug addiction got worse.

   Cash won his first Grammy in 1967 with the song "Jackson," a duet with June. A year later under the influence of drugs and alcohol Cash attempted to kill himself. Shortly after some friends moved in with him to help him over his addiction. Later that year he asked June to marry him and they wed a week later. He wasn't completely sober until 1970 but stayed sober for several years. In 1977 he started using again and was addicted by 1983 but he entered himself into rehab. This would not be his first fall but in 1992 he went into rehab for the last time.

   During this time Cash continued to come out with new hits and continued touring. In 2003, he was recording an album and in April June passed but told Cash to continue recording. Four short months later and sixty recordings later Johnny Cash died. Some believe his health got worse because of a broken heart.

   His last music video, "Hurt" wasn't completed at the time of his death but his daughter helped finish it. It became the number one country music video of all time.

Official Video Johnny Cash "Hurt"