It's all over now baby blue.
Damn right -- Johnny Cash is dead. His wife having died in May, Cash followed to join her in the great beyond, perhaps trading in his traditional black garb for white, pending St. Peter's leniency.
Sometime between when you were stumbling home or your friend with better judgment was doing his homework this past Thursday night/Friday morning, one of the greatest story tellers to ever pick up a guitar was slipping out of consciousness. Given, his body was a little ravaged from all the years of chaos and life on the road -- but something inside you kind of dies away as well when someone so influential bites the bullet.
Born and raised in Arkansas, his life led him to music, and his soul slaved every day for that one cause. His first recording contract was with Sam Phillips and Sun Records out of Memphis -- that's right, the same studio that discovered Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. Even though Phillips initially turned him down, Cash sealed his popularity with the single "Cry Cry Cry/Hey Porter."
Perhaps Cash is best known for his rebellion. When he appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in 1957, he decided to wear all black instead of the rhinestones and glitter that garnished most guests on the popular show. The outfit would stick, causing us to remember him forever as "The Man in Black." The black he wore was just one sign of his irregular behavior. Cash is one of the original outlaws in the music industry. His rigorous life on the road and intense schedule of shows fueled his addiction to amphetamines and alcohol.
His desire to record Gospel music caused a split with Phillips, and he signed a deal with Columbia in 1958. Unfortunately for Johnny, his life would not get any easier.By the early 60s he had began to get in trouble. He became the first man to become so drunk that he started a forest fire, securing himself an $85,000 fine and a reputation that would never lose grip.
His second wife, June Carter, helped him write "Ring of Fire," probably his piece best known to our generation, which is either about his love relationship with June or his descent into drug/alcohol-induced destruction -- the decision lies in your personal level of optimism.
He was arrested in '65 for trying to smuggle amphetamines through El Paso in his guitar case, divorced his first wife, and married Ms. Carter shortly thereafter.It was June who would give him a little more religion than he had previously practiced. She taught him about her fundamentalist Christian beliefs and he fell in love with everything about her.
In the late 60s, he released a concert series including "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" and "Johnny Cash at San Quentin," part of his tour of U.S. prisons and his political crusade toward the lightening of sentences.His success would not yield, and he was asked by Bob Dylan to help with his Nashville Skyline album. Cash returned the favor by asking Dylan to appear on his new ABC television show, properly titled, The Johnny Cash Show.
But most well known to the true outlaw country fans are the albums he released with three other rebels, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings -- The Highwaymen. A group of real men who sang true to the hard lives they led, never relenting to the desires of record promoters or producers, just singing from the soul.
More recently, Cash released four albums with American Records under the supervision of its owner, Rick Rubin.Rubin gave Cash the most artistic license he had ever been given by a studio and was told to record whatever songs he wanted. His most recent, "American IV: The Man Comes Around," is a testament to the state he was in prior to his death last week. The album, which features mainly covers, is quite simple, most tracks consisting of Cash playing his guitar and singing the sad songs that rang through the back of his mind. His cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" turned an already depressing song into an anthem for pain and depression. Reznor's lyrics combine with Mark Romanek's (writer/director of "One Hour Photo") directing and the raw emotion that only Cash could bellow to form a surreal video that goes so far as to parallel Cash with none other than Jesus Christ. And though, unlike Lennon, Cash would never have made the comparison himself, the suffering of Christ during the Passion is fit perfectly to Cash's final days of solitude and remorse. The video leaves us with a chilling image of Cash closing his piano looking down in despair, the lyrics blaring, "And you could have it all / My empire of dirt / I will let you down / I will make you hurt."
But for people new to Cash, look back on some of his more glorious moments. The good ole days when a man wearing all black held a guitar in front of a packed house and opened with, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash."
The loss of such a man shouldn't leave fans in remorse, but should force them to look back to the moments when Cash was happiest, or when Cash made them happy. Because even if "life ain't easy for a boy named Sue," Cash made it that much easier for all of us to be better prepared "when the man comes around."
Johnny Cash was 71.
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