Johnny Cash

A box set, titled Unearthed, was issued posthumously. Costello released another album in July of that year: "The Delivery Man", a rock album recorded in Oxford, Miss. Though he wrote over a thousand songs and released dozens of albums, his creative output was not entirely silenced by his death. It was released on CD in October by Deutsche Grammophon. Two tribute albums were released shortly before his death; Kindred Spirits contains works from established artists, while Dressed In Black contains works from many lesser-known artists. A range of musical moods and styles are used to represent the different elements of the cast - satyrical pomp for the courtiers, jazz for the faeries, and for Bottom a deliberately intrusive "brass band" motif. At an all-star concert in 2002, a diverse group of artists paid him tribute, including Bob Dylan, Chris Isaak, Wyclef Jean, Norah Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and U2. Whilst composing it, Costello deliberately avoided listening to the previous interpretations by Mendelssohn and Britten in order to ensure his own originality.

Cash nurtured and defended artists on the fringes of what was acceptable in country music, even while serving as the country music establishment's most visible symbol. The work, a ballet after Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream, was commissioned by Italian dance troupe Aterballeto, and received critical acclaim. Upon his death, Cash was revered and eulogized by many of the greatest popular musicians of our day, whose comments on the man and his work reflect something of the esteem in which he was held:. In July 2004 Costello's first full-scale orchestral work, Il Sogno, was performed in New York. From his early days as a pioneer of rockabilly and rock and roll in the 1950s, to his decades as an international representative of country music, to his resurgence to fame as both a living legend and an alternative country icon in the 1990s, Cash has influenced countless artists and left a body of work matched only by the greatest artists of his time. In 2004, the song "Scarlet Tide" (co-written by Costello and T-Bone Burnett and used in the film Cold Mountain) was nominated for an Academy Award. He was interred next to his wife in Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee. In December, Costello and Krall married at the London estate of Elton John.

Less than four months after his wife's death, Johnny Cash died at the age of 71 due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure, while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. September saw the release of North, an album of piano-based ballads. His wife, June Carter Cash, died due to complications following heart valve surgery on May 15, 2003 at the age of 73. In May, his engagement to Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall was announced. It also won a Grammy for Best Short Form Video at the 2004 Grammy Awards. In March 2003, Elvis Costello & The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The video for "Hurt", a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, was nominated in seven categories at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards and won the award for Best Cinematography. In 2002 he released a new album, When I Was Cruel, and toured with a new band, the Imposters (the Attractions with a different bass player, Davey Farragher, formerly of Cracker).

Cash released American IV: The Man Comes Around (2002), consisting partly of original material and partly of covers, some quite surprising. He produced and appeared on an album of songs for opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter, For The Stars. The album American III: Solitary Man (2000) contained his response to the illness, typified by a version of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", as well as a powerful reading of U2's "One". In 2001, Costello began teaching music at UCLA and wrote the music for a new ballet. In 1997 Cash was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease Shy-Drager syndrome — a diagnosis that was later altered to autonomic neuropathy, associated with diabetes — and his illness forced him to curtail his touring; he was hospitalised in 1998 with severe pneumonia, which damaged his lungs. For the 25th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Costello was invited to the program, where he re-enacted his abrupt song-switch: This time, however, he interrupted the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage", and they acted as his backing group for "Radio, Radio". Cash and Rubin bought a full-page ad in Billboard magazine sarcastically thanking the country music industry for its continued support, accompanied by a picture of Cash displaying his middle finger. That collaboration led the pair to write and record an album together, Painted From Memory, released in 1998 under his new contract with Mercury Records.

Despite being virtually ignored by country music radio and the Nashville establishment, Unchained received a Grammy for "Best Country Album". He collaborated with Burt Bacharach in 1996 on a song called "God Give Me Strength" for the movie Grace of My Heart. In addition to many of Cash's own compositions, Unchained contained songs by Soundgarden ("Rusty Cage") and Beck ("Rowboat"), as well as a guest appearance from Flea, bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. This was the final album of his Warner Bros. contract. For his second album with Rubin, 1996's Unchained, Cash enlisted the accompaniment of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. An album of cover songs recorded 5 years previously was released in 1995, Kojak Variety, followed in 1996 by an album of songs he had originally written for other artists, All This Useless Beauty. The actress thought so highly of Cash that she later named one of her twin sons after him and another after Christopher Reeve. Costello would return to rock and roll the following year with a project that reunited him with The Attractions, Brutal Youth.

In addition to this, Cash and his wife appeared on a number of episodes of the popular television series Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman starring Jane Seymour. In 1993, Costello tested the waters of classical music with a critically acclaimed collaboration with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters. This was the beginning of a decade of music industry accolades and surprising commercial success. In 1991 Costello released the aforementioned Mighty Like A Rose, during which time he infamously grew a long beard. Cash wrote that his reception at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival was one of the highlights of his career. In 1989, he appeared on the HBO special, Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night that featured his long-time idol, Roy Orbison and was invited back to Saturday Night Live for the first time since 1977. The album was well received by critics, while his versions of songs by more modern artists such as heavy metal band Danzig and Tom Waits helped to bring him a new audience. They wrote a number of songs together including Costello's "Veronica" and "Pads, Paws and Claws" from Spike (1989), "So Like Candy" and "Playboy to a Man" from Mighty Like A Rose (1991) and McCartney's "My Brave Face", "Don't Be Careless Love", "That Day Is Done" and "You Want Her Too" from Flowers in the Dirt, and "The Lovers That Never Were" and "Mistress and Maid" from Off The Ground.

The video for the first single, the traditional song "Delia's Gone", was put into rotation on MTV, including a spot on Beavis and Butt-head. In 1987, Costello, with a new contract with Warner Bros., began a long running songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney. Under Rubin's supervision, he recorded the album American Recordings (1994) in his living room, accompanied only by his guitar. It also marked the return of producer Nick Lowe, who had produced Costello's first five albums. Though unwanted by major labels, he was approached by producer Rick Rubin and offered a contract with Rubin's American Recordings label, better known for rap and hard rock than for country music. Later that year, he returned to the studio with the Attractions and recorded Blood and Chocolate, heralded for a post-punk fervor not heard since 1978's This Year's Model. His career was rejuvenated in the 1990s. Around this time he legally changed his name back to Declan McManus, adding Aloysius as an extra middle name.

In 1986 Cash published his only novel, Man in White, a book about Saul and his conversion in becoming the Apostle Paul. Working in the US with Burnett, a band containing a number of Elvis Presley's sidemen (including James Burton and Jerry Scheff) and minor input from the Attractions he produced King Of America, an acoustic guitar-driven album with a country sound, augmented by some of his best songs for some time. After being dropped from his recording contract with Columbia Records, he had a short and unsuccessful stint with Mercury Records. By 1986, Costello was preparing to make his comeback. As his relationship with record companies and the Nashville establishment soured, he occasionally lapsed into self-parody, notably on "Chicken In Black". In 1985, Costello teamed up with good friend T-Bone Burnett for a single called "The People's Limousine" under the moniker of The Coward Brothers. That year, Costello also produced Rum, Sodomy and the Lash for the punk/folk band the Pogues. He said he had visions of Heaven that were so beautiful that he was angry when he woke up alive. The retirement, although short-lived, was accompanied by two compilations, Elvis Costello: The Man in the UK, Europe and Australia and The Best Of Elvis Costello in the USA.

Cash later claimed that during his operation, he had what is called a "near death experience". However, even though this is generally regarded as one his worst records, some songs such as "The Comedians" (which was quoted in Alan Moore's seminal comic series Watchmen) are very highly regarded. Both recovered, though Cash refused to use any prescription painkillers, fearing a relapse into dependency. With a number of poor songs, and with even the better ones damaged by muddy production, the record was slated on release, an opinion which even many of Costello's most ardent fans still share. Doctors recommended preventative heart surgery for Cash, and he underwent double bypass surgery in the same hospital. Costello would later say of this record that they had "got it as wrong as you can in terms of the execution". At another hospital visit in 1988, this time to watch over Waylon Jennings (who was recovering from a heart attack), Jennings suggested that Cash have himself checked in to the hospital for his own heart condition. Tensions within the band were beginning to tell, and with Costello starting to feel burnt out he announced his retirement and the disbandment of the group shortly before they were to record Goodbye Cruel World (1984).

During his recovery at the Betty Ford Clinic in 1986, he met and befriended Ozzy Osbourne, one of his son's favorite singers. Punch the Clock also generated an international hit in the single "Everyday I Write the Book," aided by a prophetic music video featuring lookalikes of the Prince and Princess of Wales undergoing domestic strife in a suburban home. Cash relapsed into addiction in the early 1980s, after a stomach injury caused him to begin abusing painkillers. (The electorate were seemingly not swayed.). This film was based on a real life Georgia murder case and Cash had tried for years to make the film that also won acclaim. Equally political was "Pills And Soap" -- a UK hit for Costello himself under the pseudonym of "The Imposter" -- an attack on the changes in British society brought on by Thatcherism, released to coincide with the run-up to the 1983 UK general election. In 1983, Cash also appeared as a heroic sheriff in Murder In Coweta County. (An affecting, emotive cover version of the song was a minor UK hit for former Soft Machine drummer and political activist, Robert Wyatt).

Cash won fine reviews for his work in this film that called attention to adult illiteracy. Clive Langer, who co-produced with Alan Winstanley, provided Costello with a melody which eventually became "Shipbuilding", an oblique and articulate look at the political contradictions of the Falklands War, with the military build-up providing jobs for the struggling shipyards of Britain; the song featured a striking solo by Chet Baker. In 1981, he starred in The Pride Of Jesse Hallam. 1983 saw another sidetrack with the Pop-Soul of Punch the Clock, featuring female backing vocals courtesy of Afrodiziak and a four piece brass section, The TKO Horns, alongside The Attractions. It was also in this time period that Johnny Cash appeared as an actor in a number of television films. Featuring a superior set of songs - both musically and lyrically - it remains one of his most critically acclaimed records but again failed to produce any hit singles. In the mid-1980s he recorded and toured with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson as The Highwaymen, making two hit albums. Imperial Bedroom (1982) marked a much darker, almost baroque sound for Costello, due in large part to the production of Geoff Emerick, famed for engineering several Beatles records.

In 1980, Cash became the Country Music Hall of Fame's youngest living inductee at age 48, but during the 1980s his records failed to make a major impact on the country charts, though he continued to tour successfully. (Jazz Trumpeter Chet Baker would later perform and record a beautifully morose version of this song.). He did a voice cameo on The Simpsons in the show's eighth season, playing the voice of a coyote that guides Homer on a spiritual quest. Almost Blue did spawn a surprise UK hit single in a version of George Jones' "Good Year For The Roses." Although the album was entitled Almost Blue it didn't include the song by that name, which would appear on 1982's Imperial Bedroom release. He also continued appearing on television, hosting an annual Christmas special on CBS throughout the 1970s. Receiving mixed reviews, some of which accused Costello of growing soft, the record was released with a sticker bearing the message:. The decade saw his religious conviction deepening, and in addition to his regular touring schedule, he made many public appearances in an evangelical capacity. Following the commercial disappointment of Trust, Costello took a break from songwriting and the band decamped to Nashville to record Almost Blue, an album of country music ballads written by the likes of Merle Haggard ("Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down") and Gram Parsons ("How Much I Lied").

His friendship with Billy Graham led to the production of a movie about the life of Jesus, The Gospel Road, which Cash co-wrote and narrated. Despite its eclecticism ("Different Finger" had a distinct country feel) and pop hooks, Trust was not a major success and the first album since his debut to generate no hit singles. (A second, "Cash: The Autobiography", appeared in 1998). 1981's Trust had a more pop sound, but the overall result was clearly affected by the growing tensions within the band, particularly between Bruce and Pete Thomas. In the mid-'70s, Cash's popularity and hit songs began to decline, but his autobiography, titled Man in Black, was published in 1975 and sold 1.3 million copies. Lyrically, the songs are full of Costello's signature wordplay, to the point that he later felt he'd become something of a self-parody and toned it down on later releases. In 1971, Johnny wrote the song "Man in Black" to help explain his dress code: "I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, / Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town, / I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, / But is there because he's a victim of the times.". The brevity of the songs (20 tracks in about 45 minutes) suited the band's new style (the Thomas' typically melodic rhythm section and Nieve's reasonable impersonation of Booker T) as well as the frantic and stressful conditions under which it was written and recorded, crammed between live dates and fuelled by excessive drinking.

This outfit stood in stark contrast to the costumes worn by most of the major country acts in his day – rhinestone Nudie suits and cowboy boots. It would be the first, and - along with King Of America - possibly most successful, of Costello's many experiments with genres beyond those with which he is normally associated (the single, "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" was an old Sam and Dave song, though Costello increased the tempo considerably). He regularly performed dressed all in black, wearing a long black knee-length coat, causing him to be dubbed "The Man in Black". Possibly as another statement of his oft-stated debt to black music, Costello and the Attractions' next album, Get Happy!! was an inventive pastiche of new wave pop and soul music. Immensely popular, and an imposing tall figure, by the early 1970s he had crystallized his public image. A contrite Costello apologised at a press conference, claiming that he had been drunk, and had said it only to annoy Bramlett (at which he was successful, since Bramlett punched him in the face). During a live performance of Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down", Cash made headlines when he refused to change the lyrics to suit network executives, singing the song with its controversial references to marijuana intact: "On the Sunday morning sidewalks / Wishin', Lord, that I was stoned". His success in the US was severely dented, however when Costello called Ray Charles a "blind, ignorant nigger" during an argument with Bonnie Bramlett in an Ohio bar (the comment being particularly odd, since Elvis worked extensively in Britain's "Rock Against Racism" campaign both before and after).

Another artist who received a major career boost from The Johnny Cash Show was songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Costello also found time in 1979 to produce the debut album for ska band The Specials. In addition to the appearance on his TV show, Cash sang a duet with Dylan on his country album Nashville Skyline, and also wrote the album's Grammy-winning liner notes. Both the album and the single "Oliver's Army", with a piano hook self-admittedly borrowed from Abba's "Dancing Queen", went to No.2 in the UK. Cash was enthusiastic about reintroducing the reclusive Dylan to his audience. Inspired by the constant touring, the band were in fine form and Elvis had further honed his lyrical wit, tackling subjects both personal and political. Cash had been an early supporter of Dylan even before they had met, but they became friends while they were neighbors in late 1960s Woodstock, New York. 1979 would see the peak of Costello's commercial success with the release of the album Armed Forces (originally titled "Emotional Fascism").

Notable rock artists appeared on his show, including Neil Young and Bob Dylan. He was banned from Saturday Night Live for nearly fifteen years, and didn't appear on any American television programs for several years. From 1969 to 1971, he starred in his own television show on the ABC network. Costello has also stated that he thought "Less Than Zero" would not make much sense to American audiences. Shortly after his historic concert at Madison Square Garden in the last days of the 1960s, his son John Carter Cash was born. During rehearsal, he and the Attractions played "Less Than Zero" but when the live performance came, Costello played the introduction for that song, then--to the shock of the program's producers--he stopped the song, apologized to the audience, then broke into a rendition of "Radio, Radio" depite being asked not to play the song because of its anti-corporate message. The Folsom Prison record was charged by a blistering rendition of his classic "Folsom Prison Blues", while the San Quentin record included the crossover hit single "A Boy Named Sue", a Shel Silverstein-penned song that reached number one on the country charts and number two on the US Top Ten pop charts. In 1977, Costello appeared on Saturday Night Live.

Over the next two years, he recorded and released two massively successful live albums, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) and Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969). A tour of the US and Canada also saw the release of the much bootlegged promo-only "Live At The El Mocambo" which finally saw an official release as part of the "2 1/2 Years" boxset in 1993. With his wife's help, and influenced by a religious conversion experienced during a failed suicide attempt, he became a born-again Christian and began the battle against drug addiction. Following a whirlwind tour with other Stiff artists (captured on the Live Stiffs album, notable for Costello's recording of the Burt Bacharach standard "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself") the band recorded This Year's Model (1978), a frenetic record filled with raucous energy and Costello's barbed lyrics. Stand-out tracks include the British hit "(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea" and "Lipstick Vogue", on which the rhythm section excel. The love ballad "Flesh and Blood" is one of the first of many songs Cash would write about his lifelong love for his wife. He released his first major hit single, the cinematic "Watching The Detectives", recorded with Nieve, plus Steve Goulding (drums) & Andrew Bodnar (bass), both members of Graham Parker & The Rumour. He locked himself in his home and underwent detox, relying heavily on his friends and his new wife, June Carter (a member of the Carter Family). The same year, Costello recruited his own band, The Attractions (Steve Nieve, born Steve Nason, piano; Bruce Thomas, bass guitar and Pete Thomas drums; the Thomases are unrelated).

Less than two months later, the home of his next door neighbor and close friend, Roy Orbison, burned down, claiming the lives of two of Orbison's three young sons. Cash was profoundly affected by these incidents, and he began the long, hard road to recovery. 14 in the UK and Top 40 in the US) with Costello appearing on the cover in his trademark glasses bearing a striking resemblance to Buddy Holly. Its release saw Costello marketed by Stiff as a new wave artist or a punk, despite the fact that the album featured the ballad "Alison" (one of his most enduring songs). His longtime guitarist, Luther Perkins, died in a house fire in August 1968. Costello's first album, My Aim Is True (1977) was a moderate commercial success (No. Personal problems and calamity followed him to his new home on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee (outside of Nashville). His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera suggested a name change (using Presley's first name and his mother's maiden name to form "Elvis Costello") and teamed him with a country/soft rock band named "Clover" (who would later back Huey Lewis as 'The News'). "So is Rochester — Harlem — Birmingham and Vietnam.". On the basis of a demo tape, he was signed to Stiff Records.

" 'Ballad of Ira Hayes' is strong medicine," he wrote. McManus worked a number of dead-end jobs, during which time he continued to write songs, and began aggressively looking for a solo recording contract, which led to an incident in which he was arrested while busking outside a conference of record executives. Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard denouncing country radio for its reluctance. It was there that he formed his first band, Flip City, which had a style very much in the pub rock vein. They lasted until 1975–1976, by which time McManus was living in London with a wife and child. 3 country single, many stations refused to play it, deeming it too risky. Born into a musical family (his father, Ross McManus, sang with Joe Loss), McManus moved with his mother to Liverpool in 1971. Despite his heroism, Hayes returned home to crushing despair and to the racism that never disappeared: "Ira Hayes returned a hero, celebrated throughout the land / He was wined and speeched and honoured, everybody shook his hand / But He was just a Pima Indian, no water, no home, no chance / At home nobody cared what Ira had done, and when do the Indians dance?" Though "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" was a No. His output has been wildly diverse: One critic has written that "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can reinvent the past in his own image."[1] (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ly09kect7q70~T1).

For his album Bitter Tears, Cash recorded "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," a Peter LaFarge song that told the true story of a Pima Indian who was one of the Marine heroes of the epic WWII battle at Iwo Jima. He was an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s, and later became associated with the punk rock and new wave musical genres, before establishing himself as a unique and original voice in the 1980s. However, his drug addiction deepened, and his destructive behaviour led to a divorce and numerous problems performing. Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus (born August 25, 1954), better known by his stage name, Elvis Costello, is a popular British musician, singer, and songwriter of Irish descent. The mid 1960s saw Cash release a number of concept records, including Ballads Of The True West (1965) — an experimental double record mixing authentic frontier songs with Cash's spoken narration, let down by the modern arrangements — and Bitter Tears (1964), with songs highlighting the plight of the native Americans. 2003 Academy Award nomination for best original song The Scarlet Tide in Cold Mountain. More notably, he voluntarily entered several prisons to perform a series of concerts for convicts, for whom he felt a great compassion. 2001 Prison Song, as a public defender and a teacher.

He was also arrested the next year in Starkville, Mississippi for trespassing late at night onto private property to pick flowers. 1999 as himself in 200 Cigarettes. He only received a suspended sentence. 1999 as himself in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, performing with Burt Bacharach. Though the officers suspected that he was smuggling heroin from Mexico, he was actually smuggling illegal amphetamines inside his guitar case. 1997 as himself in Spice World. Although he carefully cultivated a romantic outlaw image, many fans are surprised to learn that he never served a prison sentence, though his wild activities and misdemeanors sometimes landed him in jail for short terms, usually only overnight. His most serious run-in with the law occurred while on tour in 1965, when he was arrested by the narcotics squad in El Paso, Texas. 1987 as 'Hives the Butler' in Alex Cox film Straight to Hell, starring Joe Strummer and Courtney Love.

The song, written about Cash, describes the personal Hell that Carter went through, as she revealed her forbidden love for Cash (as they were both married to different people at the time). 1985 as inept magician 'Rosco de Ville' in Alan Bleasdale film No Surrender. The song was co-written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore and originally performed by Carter's sister, but the signature mariachi-style horn arrangement was conceived by Cash, who claimed to have heard it in a dream. 1984 as 'Henry Scully' in UK TV series Scully. His record "Ring of Fire" was a major crossover hit, reaching number one on the country charts and entering the Top 20 on the pop charts. 1979 film debut as 'The Earl of Manchester' in Americathon. Though in many ways spiraling out of control, his frenetic creativity was still delivering hits. 2004 - A Tribute to Elvis Costello - Patrik Tanner.

For a brief time, Cash shared an apartment in Nashville with Waylon Jennings, who was also heavily addicted to amphetamines. 2003 - The Elvis Costello Songbook - Bonnie Brett. Friends joked about his "nervousness" and erratic behavior, many ignoring the signs of his worsening drug addiction. 2002 - Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello - (various artists). As his career was taking off in the early 1960s, Johnny Cash became addicted to amphetamines and barbiturates. 1998 - Bespoke Songs, Lost Dogs, Detours & Rendezvous - (various artists). By June's account, in the liner notes to the compilation album Love (2000), the song "I Still Miss Someone" was written about her. 2003 - Singles, Volume 3.

It was during one of these tours that he met June Carter, his future wife. 2003 - Singles, Volume 2. Though he would have three more daughters with his wife, their relationship began to sour, as Johnny was constantly touring. 2003 - Singles, Volume 1. In 1955, his daughter, singer Rosanne Cash, was born. 1993 - 2½ Years. The following year, Cash left Sun to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records, where his single "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" would become one of his biggest hits. 1987 - Out of Our Idiot.

Though Sun's most consistently best-selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash began to feel constrained by his contract with the small label. Elvis Presley had already left the label, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Jerry Lee Lewis. 1980 - Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers. In 1957, Johnny Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. 1980 - Taking Liberties. Cash's next record, "Folsom Prison Blues", made the country Top 5, and "I Walk the Line" was number one on the country charts, making it into the pop charts Top 20. 2004 - Il Sogno. His first recordings at Sun, "Hey Porter" and "Cry Cry Cry", were released in 1955 and were met with reasonable success on the country hit parade. 2004 - The Delivery Man.

After auditioning for Phillips, singing mainly gospel tunes, Phillips told him to "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell." Cash eventually won over Phillips and Clement with new songs delivered in his early frenetic style. 2003 - North. Sun producer Cowboy Jack Clement met with the young singer first, and suggested that Cash return to meet producer Sam Phillips. 2002 - When I Was Cruel. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to garner a recording contract. 1998 - Painted from Memory, with Burt Bacharach. At night, he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant (the Tennessee Two). 1996 - Costello & Nieve.

After his term of service ended, Cash married Vivian Liberto in 1954 and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances while studying to be a radio announcer. 1996 - All This Useless Beauty. While an airman in Germany, Cash wrote one of his most famous songs, "Folsom Prison Blues". 1995 - Kojak Variety. Thereafter, he was known as Johnny and sometimes as John R. 1994 - Brutal Youth. He was dubbed "John" upon enlisting as a radio operator in the Air Force, which refused to accept initials as his name. 1993 - The Juliet Letters.

He began playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy, and in high school sang on a local radio station. 1991 - Mighty Like a Rose. His early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. 1989 - Spike. Almost sixty years later, Johnny still talked of looking forward to meeting his brother in Heaven. 1986 - Blood and Chocolate. On his deathbed, the young man had visions of Heaven and angels before he died. 1986 - King of America.

Cash always talked of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident because he had gone fishing that day. 1984 - Goodbye Cruel World. He suffered for over a week before he died. 1983 - Punch the Clock. He was pulled into a whirring table saw in the mill where he worked and almost cut in two. 1982 - Imperial Bedroom. His beloved brother Jack was killed in an accident. 1981 - Almost Blue.

In 1944, a horrible incident occurred that affected Johnny Cash the rest of his life. 1981 - Trust. Cash was very close to his brother Jack. 1980 - Get Happy!!. By age five Cash was working in the cotton fields, singing along with his family as they worked. 1979 - Armed Forces. Cash's father had a severe drinking problem and was physically and emotionally abusive to his family. 1978 - This Year's Model.

His family soon moved into a farm in Dyess, Arkansas, which was provided at little cost by the government as part of the New Deal. 1977 - My Aim Is True. Cash in Kingsland, Arkansas, the son of a poor farmer. Cash was born J.R. His gravelly voice and the distinctive boom chicka boom sound of his Tennessee Two backing band were instantly recognizable to millions.