Legend Cash dies at 71

Music mourns man in black

By PHIL GALLO

Cash

Cash's wife and collaborator, June Carter Cash, died four months ago.

This article was updated on Sept. 14, 2003 at 9:05 p.m. PT.

HOLLYWOOD -- The Man in Black has died.

Johnny Cash, one of country music's most prominent figures whose influence spread deep into country, pop and rock 'n' roll, died Friday of complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure. He was 71.

Cash, who performed for presidents and prisoners, died at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, just four months after the death of his wife June Carter Cash. He had been in and out of the hospital regularly the last several years, suffering from Shy-Drager, an illness similar to Parkinson's disease that attacks the nervous system and affects muscle control. He was unable to attend the MTV Video Music Awards ceremony in August because he was hospitalized in Nashville with a stomach ailment.

His career spanned five decades, beginning with his spare and dark recordings made for Memphis' Sun Records and concluding with him covering brooding music written by modern rock artists such as Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor, Nick Lowe, Sting and Tom Waits. The key figure blazing the trail in writing songs about the underbelly of humanity, Cash found a kindred spirit in those composers. In his 1955 recording of "Folsom Prison Blues," he sang what may very well be the darkest, remorse-free line ever sung in a top 10 hit: "I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die."

1,000 compositions

In between those two phases that defined his career, he used his baritone-bass voice to pioneer a branch of country music concerning people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, a continuation of the work of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers. In his more than 1,000 compositions, he wrote about coal miners, sharecroppers, soldiers, barkeeps, convicts, families, cowboys and, of course, himself, without making heroes out of any of them. He sang about real life, whether in the Dust Bowl, a church or behind prison walls, releasing more than 130 albums. His importance has been acknowledged by artists ranging from Neil Young and Bob Dylan to Garth Brooks to Justin Timberlake.

"He showed me his house, his ranch, his zoo, his faith, his musicianship," U2's Bono said on the band's Web site. "He was more than wise. In a garden full of weeds -- the oak tree."

His first hit, "Folsom Prison Blues" was written while Cash, born in Kingsland, Ark., was stationed in Germany during the Korean War. He had enlisted in the Air Force and worked as a cryptographer; more importantly, he had bought a guitar and started performing with an informal group called the Landsberg Barbarians.

After being discharged in 1954, he settled in Memphis, marrying his first wife Vivian Leberto, by whom he had three daughters, one of whom is singer Rosanne Cash. He studied radio announcing at a broadcasting school and, to make ends meet, he sold appliances door to door. Cash also played music with a trio that featured guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant that appeared on Memphis radio station KWEM.

Through his brother Roy, also a musician, he was introduced to Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records, where Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis would get their starts. He auditioned as a gospel singer, but Phillips was looking for something more commercial and Cash played his composition "Hey Porter," recording it March 22, 1955.

First Sun single

It was released on a single with "Cry, Cry, Cry" under the name Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two. "Cry, Cry, Cry" reached No. 14 on the country chart and led to a year's stint on the Louisiana Hayride and a tour of the U.S. and Canada. In 1956, "I Walk the Line" became his first country No. 1 and his first crossover hit on the pop charts, where it reached No. 17. It sold more than 1 million copies.

The Man in Black image was soon crafted, and by the time he made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in 1957, Cash was a sharp contrast to up-and-coming country ballad singers such as Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves and Jimmy Dean. The Nashville sound, by the second half of the 1950s, was full of lush strings and love songs created to attract a more cosmopolitan audience.

In contrast to much of the Music City talent, Cash was writing his own material, which was influenced by his youth in Dyess Colony, Ark., spent working with sharecroppers, adhering to his mother's faith in the Pentecostal Church of God and enduring floods, droughts and WWII. "I don't know where it comes from," he once said. "I just like that mysterious sound. A song has to be something I can feel. And 'feel' covers a lot of space with me, meaning spirituality, gut feeling and heart feeling."

By the time Cash had written 50 songs, sold 5 million records and had his tunes covered by everyone from Hoagy Carmichael to Lawrence Welk, he made his first album, "Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar." TV came calling and Cash made appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show," "American Bandstand" and "The Jackie Gleason Show" as hits such as "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" and "Guess Things Happen That Way" kept him ensconced in the country top 10. By the end of 1957, he was reportedly earning more than $250,000 a year.

Move to Columbia

Ostensibly because Sun Records would not allow him to record a gospel album, but more importantly, because they wouldn't increase his record royalties, Cash moved over to Columbia Records in 1958. He would stay with the label for 28 years.

Cash recorded almost exclusively in Nashville, initially with Don Law as his producer and, in the late 1960s, with Bob Johnston. Cash's Columbia recordings, made with Perkins and Grant plus session heavyweights such as pianist Floyd Kramer, kept the country top 10 flooded. Sun Records was also releasing Cash recordings -- "Luther Played the Boogie," for example -- that were competing for airplay with the more heavily promoted Columbia sides.

On New Year's Day 1960, Cash opened another door that would later become one of his hallmarks: He made his first performance at a prison, California's San Quentin, with future country music hall of famer Merle Haggard in attendance.

He also recorded gospel albums ("Hymns by Johnny Cash") and began a string of concept albums with 1959's "Songs of Our Soil," which found him delving into folk-based Americana material. (Other collections would cover murder, love, death, Native Americans and humor). Touring was eating up a fair amount of his time -- 300 shows a year -- and he was getting roles in Westerns such as "Five Minutes to Live" and "Night Rider"; in the 1970s, he'd appear in "A Gunfight" opposite Kirk Douglas and in a guest role on NBC's "Columbo." While working on films in Hollywood, he would spend spare time in the studio, recording songs such as "Tennessee Flat-Top Box." The intense schedule, combined with an increasing dependency on Dexedrine and tranquilizers, helped bring an end to his marriage and sent him into a short period of decline.

'Ring' a crossover hit

Singer June Carter, daughter of country legend Mother Maybelle Carter and who would later become his second wife, entered his life in the early 1960s. She co-wrote "Ring of Fire," which in early 1963 became his second biggest crossover hit -- No. 1 country and No. 17 pop.

The follow-up, "Understand Your Man," also crossed over to the pop side, but an arrest in October 1965 for trying to smuggle amphetamines into the U.S. from Mexico damaged his career in the States. The Grand Ole Opry refused to let him perform.

Ironically, the arrest came just four months after Cash saw his first chart success in the U.K., a cover of Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" with Carter reached No. 28 and he had participated in Carnegie Hall's New York Folk Festival, further expanding his audience base. A year later, Cash was able to tour the U.K. for the first time and eventually have a top 30 hit with the novelty tune "Everybody Loves a Nut."

The following year was one of Cash's darkest. His drug dependency became so heavy he was found one night near death in Georgia; his wife Vivian divorced him; and his hectic recording schedule had come to a halt. With Carter's help, he returned to Nashville, overcame his addiction and converted to fundamentalist Christianity. His first "Greatest Hits" album was released in August 1967 and it spent 71 weeks on the charts.

The next year, however, was a bonanza. Cash and Carter won a Grammy for "Jackson" in February; the two married in March following an onstage proposal; and "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" reached No. 13 on the pop album chart and stayed there for more than two years. In October, it won album of the year at the Country Music Awards.

In early 1969, Cash recorded "Girl From North Country" with Dylan for his "Nashville Skyline" album, and when Cash began "The Johnny Cash Show" that summer, Dylan appeared and gave his second TV performance of the 1960s. Show introduced the trademark phrase that would be used to open his concerts for the next three decades: "Hello ... I'm Johnny Cash."

Buoyed by 'Boy'

Soon after Cash began his TV show, which would run until 1971, his "Johnny Cash at San Quentin" topped the pop album chart and spawned the single "A Boy Named Sue," which went to No. 2 on the pop charts. In April 1970 he played the novelty tune at the White House for President Nixon. Cash, Dylan and Carl Perkins would contribute tunes to the film "Little Fauss and Big Halsy" later that year.

After his ABC show went off the air, Cash and Carter traveled to Israel to film "Gospel Road," about Christianity and modern-day life in the Holy Land. His album "The Man in Black" extended his Christian worldview, featuring an appearance by evangelist Billy Graham. He would make another docu, "In the Footsteps of Jesus," that would air on television.

Cash quietly went through the 1970s, making mostly religious albums and touring. He hosted a four-week TV series in 1976 for CBS that originated at the Grand Ole Opry and featured other country artists.

In 1980, Cash became the youngest member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. A year later, Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, who made up the Million Dollar Quartet with Elvis Presley, would wind up onstage together in Germany. A live recording was made and released as "The Survivors." The trio would reunite again in 1986 with Roy Orbison as "Class of '55."

Hanging out with country veterans paid off again in 1985 when Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson hit the top of the country chart with their supergroup the Highwaymen.

While he was working with those longtime associates, Cash was simultaneously forging a more contempo ground on his recordings. "Rockabilly Blues" (1980) found him working with Brit new wave musicians and "Johnny 99" (1983) found him convincingly tackling Bruce Springsteen tunes. Sales, however, foundered and the label dropped him.

Cash returned on Mercury Records in 1988 with "Water From the Wells of Home." A collection of duets, Cash sang with Paul McCartney, his daughter Rosanne, Hank Williams Jr., Emmylou Harris and others. The album barely cracked the country top 50.

Carter Family tour

With his wife, Cash toured extensively through the 1980s and the early '90s with a modern version of the Carter Family, the first family of country music with roots in the 1927 Bristol, Tenn., sessions that birthed country. The tours treated Carter as a superstar on par with Cash, which was his wont; he had often said the only thing that stunted her rising career was her marriage to him.

In 1993, a year after he was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, rap producer Rick Rubin brought Cash into his American Records fold and made an album that would bear a similar name, "American Recordings." Rubin immediately got Cash to connect with a younger audience, booking him into the hip Viper Room in West Hollywood to perform for rock musicians and celebs.

Once Cash issued "American Recordings," he appeared at Hollywood's Pantages Theater, where his concerts were attended by a who's who of rock musicians influenced by him -- among them, Tom Petty, Sheryl Crow, Henry Rollins, Don Was and Bonnie Raitt. Proof that he never turned his back on old friends, the one person introduced from the stage that night was Morey Amsterdam, the actor who co-starred on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" but was also a songwriter.

Cash followed that disc with "Unchained," in which he fronted Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The first album recorded after he was diagnosed with Shy-Drager, "Solitary Man," found him working with established rock stars and performing material that had not been in his purview, U2's "One," for example. "American IV: The Man Comes Around" was released in November.

While the new albums were catapulting Cash's career, Sony Music reissued a dozen of his classic albums in 2002 to celebrate his 70th birthday.

Grammy streak

Cash won the male country vocal performance Grammy for "Give My Love to Rose," a track from "American IV" that slipped into the eligibility period because it had been released on vinyl more than a month before it was available on CD. The win kept a streak alive: Each of Cash's American Records album garnered a Grammy, bringing his win total to 11. (Two of his awards are for liner notes).

Among the many awards and honors bestowed on Cash, the final one came last month when his video "Hurt" won the award for cinematography in a video at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Cash is survived by daughters Rosanne, Tara, Cindy and Kathy and son John Carter Cash. The Cash family will announce funeral arrangements, a statement from his manager said.

(Richard Natale contributed to this report.)