Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash was born in rural, south-central Arkansas, on February 26, 1932.His birth place is almost directly across the Mississippi from Lake County where Carl Perkins was born six weeks later. The family moved to Dyess, Arkansas when he was three. His father Ray Cash, was a farmer, hobo, and odd job laborer. The move to Dyess meant hope to the poverty stricken Cash Family. Ray and his son Roy, worked hard developing their government subsidized farm. When Johnny was older he joined them. After working in the fields during the day, Johnny would listen to the radio at night, picking out the Memphis stations with their mix of country and blues song. Johnny began composing songs, his first at the age of 12, combining the best of both styles. His family, especially his mother Reba, encouraged him. When he was older, he left home to work in Pontiac, MI. The job lasted only two weeks before he returned home to Arkansas. On July 7,1950 he enlisted in the Air Force, Before leaving Cash went roller skating in San Antonio, Texas. There he met Vivian Liberto, then seventeen and in her last year of high school. They dated a few weeks and wrote each other while Cash was overseas. They decided to get married when he returned. and was stationed in Germany, where he bought his first guitar. He began setting his songs to music, and one of the first was "Folsom Prison Blues." Eventually with Cash playing guitar and singing in his deep baritone voice of exceptionally low and narrow range, they auditioned for Phillips in March, 1955. Signed to Sun as Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, their first single, "Cry, Cry, Cry," became a moderate country hit. After the two sided smash "So Doggone Lonesome" b/w "Folsom Prison Blues," the group had their first major pop/country hit with Cash's own "I Walk the Line" in 1956. The group appeared on the Louisiana Hayride in December 1955, becoming regulars, before graduating to the Grand Ole Opry in July 1956. They subsequently achieved major pop/top country hits with "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" and "Guess Things Happen That Way" in 1958. That year the group became Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three with the addition of W.S. Holland, one of country music's first drummers. On August 1958, the group switched to Columbia Records, soon having a moderate pop/top hit with "Don't Take Your Guns to Town." Leaving the Grand Ole Opry and moving to California, Cash started working with June Carter of the legendary Carter Family, in 1961. feeling the strain of constant touring, and the collapse of his first marriage and death of friend Johnny Horton, Cash began taking amphetamines and tranquilizers to cope. In 1963 he scored his first major pop/top hit with Columbia with "Ring of Fire." In 1969 Cash's ABC television series debuted featuring a film of Cash and Bob Dylan recording "Girl from the North Country." The song later appeared on Dylan's Nashville Skyline, Dylan's first country album.Later shows featured such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, and Joni Mitchell. During the 70s daughter Roseanne Carter and step-daughter Carlene Carter worked with the Johnny Cash Road Show. In 1992, Cash received the surprising honor of being named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With that, he made musical history. JRC had become the only person to have been inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Song Writers Hall of Fame. The honor was well deserved.