History Book: Grace in black

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JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Today is Monday, February 23rd.

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Good morning. I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: an American original.

When Johnny Cash was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant from the U.S. Air Force in July 1954, no one could have foreseen what his future held, not least Cash himself.

But just over a year later, he would write and record the first of his many country Top-10 hits. And over the next 50 years, he would become not only a country- music star, but a pop-culture icon as well.

This week would have marked his 94th birthday.

WORLD’s Arsenio Orteza now, with an appreciation of the life and music of Johnny Cash.

ARSENIO ORTEZA: Before he became Johnny Cash, he was simply J.R. Cash, initials that didn’t so much represent names as a compromise: Cash’s mother wanted to name him “John,” and his father—Ray—wanted to name him “Ray.” 

J.R. Cash didn’t become “John Ray” Cash until 1950, when the Air Force wouldn’t let him register without a first and a middle name. And he stayed “John” until he began recording for Sun Records’ Sam Phillips, who thought “Johnny” better personified youthful rebellion.

The rebellious part marked Cash’s career; the youthful part, not so much. 

Though just 24 when he scored his first chart-topping single in 1956, he already sounded like someone who’d lived more lifetimes than one.

MUSIC: [“I Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash]

In a sense, Cash had lived more lifetimes than one. Born into a poor, Baptist, cotton-farming family in Arkansas, he was the fourth of seven children and learned early the connection between hard work and survival. It would serve him well. 

He also learned the inevitability of tragedy. When he was 12, his older brother Jack, a devout Christian whose faith had made a strong impression on him, died as the result of a sawmill accident.

Faith, hard work, and tragedy would eventually come to characterize his music as well, and prove a potent and popular combination. 

As a solo performer, Cash recorded 45 Billboard country top 10s and 13 number ones. With June Carter Cash, Waylon Jennings, and the Highwaymen, he scored even more. 

Faith and tragedy—not necessarily in that order—also made him newsworthy. His immersion in the popular-musician lifestyle took its toll on his first marriage and young family, and he nearly killed both his career and himself with a steady diet of amphetamines, barbiturates, and alcohol. 

It was his marriage to June Carter—which began as an affair and was his second marriage and her third—and a return to his Christian faith in 1968 that stabilized him and led to his second classic period. 

“Folsom Prison Blues” was the lead track from his live album At Folsom Prison.

MUSIC: [“Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash]

By 2003, both it and its 1969 follow-up, At San Quentin, had gone triple platinum, making them two of the bestselling country albums recorded during the 1960s. They also reestablished Cash as a first-rate performer and in so doing made him into a survivor.

Survivors are, by definition, sympathetic figures. When faith comes into the picture, they can become persuasive figures too. 

MUSIC: [“I See Men As Trees Walkin’” by Johnny Cash]

Between 1969, when he released the album The Holy Land, and 1973, when he released the film The Gospel Road and its soundtrack, Cash became one of the most outspoken Christian celebrities in America.

MUSIC: [“I See Men As Trees Walkin’” by Johnny Cash]

From 1969 to ’71, Cash also hosted a popular TV show, and for the next decade he often performed over a hundred concerts a year. 

There were times when he seemed to be everywhere. But the overexposure took its toll, and sales of his music sagged. 

He was ordained as a minister by the Charismatic preacher Bill Hamon in 1977. But instead of igniting a period of spiritual fervor, the event seemed to signal a last gasp. By decade’s end, Cash wasn’t affiliated with any particular body of believers, and he was abusing pills again—by some accounts even worse than he had in the ’60s. 

He wouldn’t overcome his addictions for another 10 years.

TURNER: His life story is a series of victories and relapses, really, which is, I guess, why people can relate to him.

Steve Turner is the author of the excellent 2004 biography The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend. I asked him what he made of Cash’s notorious ups and downs.

TURNER: I remember asking him when I interviewed him, like, ‘Would your life have been better if you'd been Pat Boone?’ In other words, if he'd kept on the straight and narrow, if he'd never got into all that stuff and never taken drugs. And he said, “Well, it might have been in that I might have got more work done,” you know, because taking drugs and being sick, obviously takes the edge off your work. But he felt that the experiences have been valuable and, I think that's true. I mean, he looked like a man of experience and he kind of sang like a man of experience.

The hip-hop and heavy-metal producer Rick Rubin tapped into that experience in the 1990s. Beginning with the album American Recordings, Rubin and Cash recorded seven albums and one box set, some released posthumously. These projects made Cash cool again, and found him recording all manner of songs. 

Some were Cash originals, but most were cover versions—and rather unlikely covers at that.

MUSIC: [“Hurt” by Johnny Cash]

This 2002 rendition of “Hurt” by the industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails was instantly recognized as one of Cash’s most powerful performances ever, in part because of its award-winning video. 

The video also made clear how much the 70-year-old Cash’s health had degenerated. He’d suffered numerous debilitating ailments, and as a result he looked—and no doubt felt—10 if not 20 years older. 

Larry King asked him whether he’d grown bitter.

CASH: Bitter?

KING: Yeah, angry, you know, you're a young guy, you're only 70.

CASH: No, I'm not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life. Life the way God has given it to me is just a platter, a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's been beautiful. Yeah, things have been good, and things will get better all the time.

KING: So you have no regrets?

CASH: No regrets.

KING: And no anger at the—why did God do this to me?

CASH: Oh, no, no. I'm the last one that would be angry at God.

As if to show how angry at God he wasn’t, he’d even written a song, brimming with biblical language, about looking forward to the second coming of Christ. 

It was the title track of his then latest album, American IV: The Man Comes Around.

MUSIC: [“The Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash]

The Man Comes Around was the last of his albums that Cash would live to see released. And he sounded less youthful than ever. 

But his rebellion—against despair, against bitterness, against the spirit of the age—remained.

MUSIC: [“The Man Comes Around” by Johnny Cash]

That's this week's World History Book. I'm Arsenio Orteza. 

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