← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · xmetalhead

Thread 9743

Thread ID: 9743 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2003-09-12

Wayback Archive

xmetalhead [OP]

2003-09-12 12:53 | User Profile

We all grew up with this guy. My dad exposed me to Johnny in my early years..... [SIZE=3]Country legend Johnny Cash dies[/SIZE]

[img]http://a799.g.akamai.net/3/799/388/5275fdf5e20d39/www.msnbc.com/d/v/250x190/tdy_cash_obit_030912.jpg[/img]

Johnny Cash, a towering figure in American music spanning country, rock and folk and known worldwide as “The Man in Black,” has died, hospital officials in Nashville, Tennessee said. He was 71.

“JOHNNY DIED due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” said Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, in a press release issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.

   The release said Cash died at the hospital at 1 a.m. EDT. He was released from Baptist on Wednesday where he had spent two weeks being treated for an unspecified stomach ailment.
   “I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time,” Robin said. 
   Cash’s manager says the singer died early this morning of complications from diabetes, resulting in respiratory failure.
   He says he hopes fans will pray for the Cash family to — in his words — “find comfort during this very difficult time,” Robin said. 
   Cash had battled a disease of the nervous system, autonomic neuropathy, and pneumonia in recent years and was once diagnosed with a disease called Shy-Drager’s syndrome, a diagnosis that was later deemed to be erroneous.

VOICE OF THE WORKING MAN Dozens of hit records like “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” and “Sunday Morning Coming Down” defined Cash’s persona: a haunted, dignified, resilient spokesman for the working man and downtrodden. Cash’s deeply lined face fit well with his unsteady voice, which was limited in range but used to great effect to sing about prisoners, heartaches, and tales of everyday life. He wrote much of his own material, and was among the first to record the songs of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson. “One Piece at a Time” was about an assembly line worker who built a car out of parts stolen from his factory. “A Boy Named Sue” was a comical story of a father who gives his son a girl’s name to make him tough. “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” told of the drunken death of an American Indian soldier who helped raised the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, but returned to harsh racism in America. Cash said in his 1997 autobiography “Cash” that he tried to speak for “voices that were ignored or even suppressed in the entertainment media, not to mention the political and educational establishments.” Cash’s career spanned generations, with each finding something of value in his simple records, many of which used his trademark “boom-chicka-boom” rhythm. Cash was a peer of Elvis Presley when rock ‘n’ roll was born in Memphis in the 1950s, and he scored hits like “Cry! Cry! Cry!” during that era. He had a longtime friendship and recorded with Dylan, who has cited Cash as a major influence. He won 11 Grammys — most recently in 2003, when “Give My Love To Rose” earned him honors as best male country vocal performance — and numerous Country Music Association awards. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 and inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

FAMILY OF SINGERS His second wife, June Carter Cash, and daughter Roseanne Cash also were successful singers. June Carter Cash, who co-wrote Cash’s hit “Ring of Fire” and partnered with her husband in hits such as “Jackson,” died in May 2003. The late 1960s and ’70s were Cash’s peak commercial years, and he was host of his own ABC variety show from 1969-71. In later years, he was part of the Highwayman supergroup with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kristofferson. In the 1990s, he found a new artistic life recording with rap and hard rock producer Rick Rubin on the label American Recordings. And he was back on the charts in with the 2002 album “American IV: the Man Comes Around.” He also wrote books including two autobiographies, and acted in films and television shows. In his 1971 hit “Man in Black,” Cash said his black clothing symbolized the downtrodden people in the world. Cash had been “The Man in Black” since he joined the Grand Ole Opry at age 25. “Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkle clothes and cowboy boots,” he said in 1986. “I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I’ve worn black clothes ever since.”

EARLY TRAGEDY John R. Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark., one of seven children. When he was 12, his 14-year-old brother and hero, Jack, died after an accident while sawing oak trees into fence posts. The tragedy had a lasting impact on Cash, and he later pointed to it as a possible reason his music was frequently melancholy. He worked as a custodian and enlisted in the Air Force, learning guitar while stationed in Germany, before launching his music career after his 1954 discharge. “All through the Air Force, I was so lonely for those three years,” Cash told The Associated Press during a 1996 interview. “If I couldn’t have sung all those old country songs, I don’t think I could have made it.” Cash launched his career in Memphis, performing on radio station KWEM. He auditioned with Sun Records, ultimately recording the single “Hey Porter,” which became a hit. Sun Records also launched the careers of Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis and others. “Folsom Prison Blues,” went to No. 4 on the country charts in 1956, and featured Cash’s most famous couplet: “I shot a man in Reno/ just to watch him die.” Cash recorded theme albums celebrating the railroads and the Old West, and decrying the mistreatment of American Indians. Two of his most popular albums were recorded live at prisons. Along the way he notched 14 No. 1 country music hits.

NEVER SERVED PRISON TIME Because of Cash’s frequent performances in prisons and his rowdy lifestyle early in his career, many people wrongly thought he had served prison time. He never did, though he battled addictions to pills on and off throughout his life. He blamed fame for his vulnerability to drug addiction. “When I was a kid, I always knew I’d sing on the radio someday. I never thought about fame until it started happening to me,” he said in 1988. “Then it was hard to handle. That’s why I turned to pills.” He credited June Carter Cash, whom he married in 1968, with helping him stay off drugs, though he had several relapses over the years and was treated at the Betty Ford Center in California in 1984. June Carter Cash was the daughter of country music great Mother Maybelle Carter, and the mother of singer Carlene Carter. Together, the couple had one child, John Carter Cash. He is a musician and producer. Singer Rosanne Cash is Johnny Cash’s daughter from his first marriage, to Vivian Liberto. Their other three children were Kathleen, Cindy and Tara. They divorced in 1966.

     In March 1998, Cash made headlines when his California-based record company, American Recordings, took out an advertisement in the music trade magazine Billboard. The full-page ad celebrated Cash’s 1998 Grammy award for best country album for “Unchained.” The ad showed an enraged-looking Cash in his younger years making an obscene gesture to sarcastically illustrate his thanks to country radio stations and “the country music establishment in Nashville,” which he felt had unfairly cast him aside.
   Jennings, a close friend, once said of Cash: “He’s been like a brother to me. He’s one of the greatest people in the world.” 
   Cash once credited his mother, Carrie Rivers Cash, with encouraging him to pursue a singing career.
   “My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You’ll be singing for the world someday.”
   Cash lived in Hendersonville, Tenn., just outside of Nashville. He also had a home in Jamaica.

   © 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[url=http://www.msnbc.com/news/965586.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1]http://www.msnbc.com/news/965586.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1[/url]

Texas Dissident

2003-09-12 15:12 | User Profile

[doHTML]
Johnny Cash Dies in Nashville

By Chris Skinker

The music world is mourning the death of one of America's most influential performers, Johnny Cash. The 71-year-old member of both the Country Music and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame died early Friday morning (Sept. 12) at Nashville's Baptist Hospital.

"Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure," longtime manager Lou Robin said in a statement issued by the hospital. "I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time."

Cash had been hospitalized frequently in recent years for a variety of illnesses, including pneumonia and autonomic neuropathy, a disease of the nervous system. His wife, June Carter Cash, died May 15 at the age of 73 of complications from heart surgery.

Cash returned to the hospital after being released Tuesday (Sept. 9) following a three-week stay for treatment of a stomach ailment. The hospitalization forced him to cancel an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York. Robin told CMT News this week that Cash planned to travel to California to work with producer Rick Rubin on an album tentatively titled American V, the follow-up to his award-winning American IV: The Man Comes Around. Cash had also planned to be in Nashville in November for the CMA Awards, where he's nominated in four categories.

In a career that encompassed nearly five decades, Cash enjoyed success as a songwriter, performer, actor and author. Cash was a man who could converse as easily with his fans as with U. S. Presidents and world figures. He counted Rev. Billy Graham among his closest friends and he was a guest at the White House during the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Carter and Clinton. Cash's most recent visit to the White House was to receive a Kennedy Center Honor awarded in 1996 by Clinton.

During his career, Cash placed nearly 140 singles on Billboard's country charts as a recording artist. Only fellow Hall of Fame members Eddy Arnold and George Jones surpass Cash's chart success. His string of hit recordings, many of them penned by Cash is impressive, to say the least. "Ring of Fire," "Folsom Prison Blues," "Home of the Blues," "I Got Stripes," "Big River," "I Guess Things Happen That Way" and "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" are in the repertoire of any serious fan of classic country music. Nearly all bear the terse, distinctive sound of Luther Perkins' guitar and Cash's incredible ability convey a story –- or emotion -– through song.

Well-respected by country, folk and rock music fans alike, Cash's recording career was revitalized in 1994 when he signed with Rick Rubin's American Records label. Cash released a pair of critically acclaimed albums, American Recordings and Unchained, which earned him a pair of Grammys in 1995 and 1997 in the folk and country categories, respectively.

Cash was a charismatic individual who possessed a commanding presence. When he entered a room, all attention immediately shifted to the singer. His signature black stage attire and Top 5 single, "Man in Black," earned him the moniker "The Man in Black" in the early 1970s. Kris Kristofferson, writer of one of Cash's best-loved songs, "Sunday Morning Coming Down," once said of his fellow Highwayman, "You don't have to see him to know he's there. Hell, people who don't know country from corn flakes know Johnny Cash." Kristofferson's observation about his longtime friend is no exaggeration for Cash's resonant deep bass voice could easily be considered one of the most recognizable –- if not the most recognizable –- voice in popular music.

Cash was born Feb. 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark. Named simply J. R. (he assumed the name John while serving in the Air Force), Cash was one of seven children born to Ray and Carrie Rivers Cash. At age 3, Cash moved with his family to Dyess Colony in northeast Arkansas under a Roosevelt farm program. As a youngster, Cash worked with his family in the cotton fields on the 20-acre expanse, often times singing while they worked to make the time pass more quickly.

Cash's lifeline to the outside world was the battery-powered radio in the family's living room. After the chores were done, Cash would listen at night to programs originating from WLS in Chicago, WSM in Nashville and WLW in Cincinnati. Closer to the Cash home was the High Noon Round-Up beamed out of WMPS in Memphis, Tenn., that featured "Smilin'" Eddie Hill and the Louvin Brothers. Of those times Cash wrote in his 1975 autobiography, Man in Black, "Nothing in the world was as important to me as hearing those songs on that radio. The music carried me up above the mud, the work and the hot sun."

The Church of Christ in Dyess Colony also provided Cash with some of his first musical exposure as did the hymns and folk songs he learned from his mother. By the time he had reached his teens, Cash was honing his writing skills and singing at school assemblies and church specials. After graduating from high school in 1950, Cash worked briefly in the automotive business in Detroit before enlisting in the U. S. Air Force. Serving stateside for a year, Cash was stationed in Germany as a radio intercept operator with Security Service.

While in Germany, Cash acquired a guitar and organized his first band, the Landsberg Barbarians. In July 1954, Cash was honorably discharged from the service at the rank of Staff Sergeant and returned stateside. Later that summer, he married Vivian Liberto, whom had he met while taking his basic training in Texas (the pair later divorced). The newlyweds settled in Memphis, and Cash tried to earn a living as a door-to-door appliance salesmen. He also attended Keegan's School of Broadcasting with an eye cast toward a job in radio.

During that time, Cash's older brother, Roy, introduced him to a pair of mechanics named Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, who also shared Cash's passion for music. After getting together to play informally for friends and neighbors, the threesome played their first public appearance at a church in north Memphis. And it was for this first gig that Cash adopted the all-black stage costume. "We talked about clothes and thought we should try to dress alike, but nobody had a nice suit, and the only colored shirts we had alike were black," wrote Cash in his autobiography. Hence, the beginnings of the signature stage image that Cash would wear throughout his career.

Propelled by the success of Elvis Presley on Sun Records, Cash auditioned for Sam Phillips in 1954. He originally approached the legendary record producer about recording gospel music, but Phillips quickly vetoed that idea. The following year Cash went back to Phillips with secular music -- his own compositions -- and was signed to the label. His first recording session took place on March 22, 1955, and yielded "Hey Porter" and featured the sparse instrumental accompaniment of Perkins and Grant on electric guitar and upright bass, respectively. The song, inexplicably, failed to make a dent in the charts. Phillips apparently saw the potential in Cash and took him back in the studio two months later for another session. "Cry, Cry, Cry," which was recorded in May 1955, charted, peaking at No. 14, and Cash was on his way. Based on the strength of the single, Cash started touring with label mate Elvis Presley, performing at the King of Rock 'n' Roll's now-legendary show at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis. That same year, Cash met fellow artist Carl Perkins with whom he would become lifelong friends and later recruit as a member of his road show in the 1960s.

Cash's follow-up singles "So Doggone Lonesome" and "Folsom Prison Blues," fared even better than "Cry, Cry, Cry," both hitting the Top 10, but it was Cash's fourth chart single, "I Walk the Line," that proved to be his career song. Recorded April 2, 1956, "I Walk the Line" sold over 2 million copies and spent six weeks at the top of the Billboard country chart out of an impressive 43-week run. The song topped out at No. 17 on the trade publication's pop chart, marking the first of several Cash songs to cross over into that field.

From that point forward, Cash established himself as a vital force in music and as a bankable recording artist. Subsequent hits, "There You Go," "Next in Line," "Home of the Blues," "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" and "Big River" all reached the upper registers of the charts. By 1957, Cash was appearing on both the Louisiana Hayride out of Shreveport, La., and Nashville's Grand Ole Opry and his personal appearance schedule numbered more than 200 dates a year. That same year he also staged his first concert in a prison when he performed for the inmates at the Texas State Prison in Huntsville, Texas.

In 1958, Cash left Sun and signed with Columbia Records. Although he had enjoyed tremendous chart success with Phillips, Cash still wanted to record gospel music and believed his chances were better at doing so with Columbia. His first chart single for the label, "All Over Again" backed with "What Do I Care" was a double-sided hit, with both songs reaching the Top 10.

Cash released a pair of albums for Columbia, The Fabulous Johnny Cash and his first gospel project, Hymns by Johnny Cash. His singles, many of which Cash penned, continued to chart consistently including "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," "I Got Stripes" and "Understand Your Man." Appearances on major network programs including The Tonight Show, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Ozark Jubilee further expanded Cash's popularity outside of the mainstream country audience. In the early '60s Cash also made his movie debut with an appearance in Five Minutes to Live, a low-budget thriller co-starring Cay Forrester.

In 1960, Cash released Ride This Train, the first in a series of concept albums. Recordings such as these put Cash before the folk music crowd, culminating in a 1964 appearance at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival on the same bill with Bob Dylan. Cash, who was becoming more keenly aware of political and social issues by this time, included Peter LaFarge's "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" on the 1964 album, Bitter Tears. Initially radio was hesitant to play the song about the tragic death of the World War II hero, so Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine asking the programmers "Where Are Your Guts?" The song did eventually receive airplay and managed to crack the chart's Top 5. Cash also began his musical partnership with his wife of 33 years, June Carter. The pair recorded a series of duets for Columbia with some singles making a very respectable chart showing that included "Jackson," "It Ain't Me, Babe," "Long-Legged Guitar Pickin' Man" and "If I Were a Carpenter."

By the mid-1960s, Cash's personal life was in shambles, and his use of pep pills was starting to impact his career. To keep up with the demands and long hours of the road, Cash, like many musicians at the time, developed a dependence on amphetamines, which would plague his life for the better part of a decade and contribute in part to the dissolution of his marriage in 1966. He was missing shows and recording sessions due to chronic laryngitis (brought on by the pills), and concerns were growing among his friends and family over his gaunt appearance.

He was dropped from the Opry roster in 1965 when, in a fit of frustration and anger, he took out the footlights on the Opry stage with a microphone stand. Some minor skirmishes with the law, including a highly publicized arrest in El Paso, Texas, when Cash was returning from Mexico with a substantial number of Dexedrine and barbituates was further evidence that Cash was on a downward spiral. Cash wrote in his autobiography that an arrest two years later one night in Lafayette, Ga., "was the turning point of it all." A kind-hearted sheriff finally got through to Cash with some comments he made and Cash realized he needed to turn his life around. When he got back to Nashville, he called June Carter and asked her for help in kicking his habit. June, along with her parents took up residence in Cash's new lakefront home in Hendersonville, Tenn., and helped him slay the demons that had been chasing him. Their support and Cash's renewed religious faith helped to bring the singer back from the brink of disaster –- and possibly death.

The late 1960s and early ‘70s signaled a renaissance in Cash's career and a more stable home life. Carter and Cash were married on March 1, 1968, and the union produced a son, John Carter Cash. Cash also managed to begin mending his relationship with daughters Rosanne, Kathy, Tara and Cindy. He was one of the hottest artists on the country scene and was making even more inroads in the pop market. His album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison was a runaway hit, and the single, a remake of "Folsom Prison Blues," surpassed Cash's original recording of the song on the record charts going all the way to the No. 1 spot.

The album was a natural for Cash to do. For several years, he had performed benefit shows for inmates at prisoners around the country. In fact, at a 1958 appearance California's San Quentin Prison, a young and very impressionable Merle Haggard was among the inmates in the audience. In early 1968, Cash and producer Bob Johnston made country music history with the recording of the event. The album was part of the soundtrack to the summer of 1968, right along with recordings by The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The album won Cash the CMA's album of the year honors year as well a Grammy. Cash would repeat his success the following year with Johnny Cash at San Quentin. The Shel Silverstein-penned hit single, "A Boy Named Sue," topped the country chart and fell just shy of the top spot on the pop chart. Cash again repeated his Grammy and CMA successes -- this time garnering an impressive four awards from the latter organization.

Cash's road show was one of the big acts in the business and featured an impressive lineup: Carl Perkins, The Statler Brothers, June Carter Cash and the Carter Family appeared as part of Cash's shows, that now numbered in the neighborhood of 200 dates a year. In 1969, ABC television launched a one-hour musical variety series, The Johnny Cash Show. Filmed at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the show served as a vehicle for introducing hard-core country fans to a host of the generation's most imposing songwriters including Dylan (with whom he recorded a duet, "Girl From the North Country" for Dylan's Nashville Skyline album), Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. It also exposed younger music fans to mainstream country performers such as Haggard as well. Cash was also able to showcase some of his favorite story songs in the Ride This Train segment of the show, often tying them in with historical events or pieces of Americana. A live recording from the show of Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" netted Cash yet another No. 1 hit and substantially raised the songwriter's stock within the music industry.

In 1971, Cash was again given the opportunity to appear on the big screen when he co-starred with Kirk Douglas in A Gunfight. The following year, Cash premiered Gospel Road, a film about the life of Christ shot on location in the Holy Land and produced by Cash. He expanded his acting to television in the made-for-TV movies, Thaddeus Rose and Eddie (1978), The Pride of Jesse Hallam (1981) and The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James. He also appeared on the popular television series Columbo and Little House on the Prairie (which also featured June Carter Cash).

Throughout the '70s, Cash continued to produce solid records, although the hits began to wane toward the end of the decade. In 1980, Cash was honored for his innumerable contributions to country music with induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. At the time, Cash was the youngest living member to be inducted into the hallowed hall.

In 1985, Cash teamed up with pals Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kristofferson for the Highwayman album, which yielded a No. 1 single for the title track and a Top 20 nod for Guy Clark's "Desperados Waiting for a Train." The group toured on a limited basis and made an appearance (with Haggard subbing for Kristofferson) at the first Farm Aid benefit in Illinois. The quartet reunited for a pair of follow-ups, Highwayman II (1990) and Highwayman: The Road Goes on Forever (1995).

In the latter half of the decade, Cash paired up with Jennings for one album, Heroes and was included on the Class of '55 (Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming) that also featured former label mates Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins as well as Rick Nelson, John Fogerty and Marty Stuart.

Cash's solo recording career, however, had tapered off substantially. The hits were few and in far between and in 1986, Cash was dropped by Columbia. Emotions were mixed along Music Row. Some felt the label owed Cash more respect, while others, who perhaps didn't understand the breadth of Cash's contributions toward raising the visibility of country music to a wider audience, merely shrugged it off as business as usual.

Cash rebounded with a recording contract with Mercury Records, for whom he released a pair of albums, Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town (1987) and Water From the Wells of Home (1988). The latter album included guest appearances by Tom T. Hall, Hank Williams, Jr. and Emmylou Harris and the song "Moon Over Jamaica, which was penned by Cash, Hall and Paul McCartney. The album also yielded one chart single, "That Old Wheel," a duet with Williams. Two years later, Cash made a guest appearance on Zooropa, by rock group U2, singing "The Wanderer." In 1987, Cash published his account of the life of the Apostle Paul, Man in White, for Harper & Row.

In 1990, Cash received a Lifetime Achievement award from NARAS, making him one of a handful of country artists to be so honored by the organization. In 1992, Cash was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to that music form and later that year he and June were one of the few Nashville country artists to appear at the Dylan 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden.

After signing with American Records, Cash's career was once again jump-started, thanks in large part to record producer Rubin, known in rock circles for his work with the Beastie Boys, Run-D.M.C., System of a Down, Audioslave and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Named for Rubin's record label, Cash's American Recordings was a very stark collection of songs with Cash singing along to his simple guitar accompaniment and featured songs by Leonard Cohen, Nick Lowe and Loudon Wainwright III. The second album for the label, Unchained, featured Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and other guest performers including one-time son-in-law Stuart. After Cash received the Grammy for Unchained, his record company took out a full-page ad in Billboard that featured a photograph of Cash giving a salute to the Music Row folks who had written him off a decade earlier.

Petty and members of the Heartbreakers also appeared on Cash's American III: Solitary Man, a 2000 project that also featured guest appearances by Haggard and Sheryl Crow. The title track, "Solitary Man," won Cash the Grammy for best male country vocal performance. American III was also nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for best contemporary folk album.

Despite lingering health problems, Cash and Rubin reunited for the 2002 album, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Cash covered such classics as the Beatles' "In My Life" and Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," but the album's highlight was a remake of "Hurt," a song first written and recorded by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. The song's lyrics were underscored in a music video directed by Mark Romanek. Another track on the album, "Give My Love to Rose," won a 2003 Grammy for best male country vocal performance.

On April 7, 2003, Cash was honored with a career achievement award at the CMT Flameworthy 2003 Video Music Awards. June Carter Cash accepted the award on his behalf during a segment that included a video tribute featuring his daughter, Rosanne Cash, the Dixie Chicks, Kristofferson, Wynonna, U2's Bono, Reznor and Romanek.

As the history of country music continues to be documented, Johnny Cash, will undoubtedly be included among the music's truly great -- and most influential -- stylists of all time.[/doHTML] --- ### Otho_Isch *2003-09-12 17:55* | [User Profile](/od/user/316) > **As the history of country music continues to be documented, Johnny Cash, will undoubtedly be included among the music's truly great -- and most influential -- stylists of all time. ** Country music hell. AMERICAN music period. Frank Zappa, Alien Sex Fiend, NRBQ, The Mekons, String Cheese Incident, Townes Van Zandt...they all covered his stuff. He was THE man. God love you and keep you close, Mr. Cash. --- ### All Old Right *2003-09-12 20:21* | [User Profile](/od/user/664) I'm not sure the Dixie Chicks and U2 should be in the same article as talent like Haggard, Cash, Nelson, Jennings, and Kristofferson. :D --- ### il ragno *2003-09-12 21:07* | [User Profile](/od/user/85) In a Xerox world, he was an original document. RIP to the Man In Black. --- ### Walter Yannis *2003-09-14 17:39* | [User Profile](/od/user/57) > In a Xerox world, he was an original document. RIP to the Man In Black. Amen. I was a fan every since I was a little kid. Grew up on his music. He was a poet, a bard. He did a version recently of U2's "One" that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. He was a true interpretor of the simple song. Every song was better filtered through his soul. May he rest in peace. Walter --- ### Spiderman *2003-09-15 15:53* | [User Profile](/od/user/654) "I hear the train'a coming..." (haunted)... Johnny had all the wisdom of things that last. May fall in or out of fashion but unlike those things, lasts... Both an original and I agree with the previous poster "every song was better for having been filtered through his soul." You knew his soul was tempered, humbled, right sized... It's why when he said proudly (and without hubris) "Hello Everybody, I'm Johnny Cash!" you neither felt aloof, nor subjugated, nor that he wanted anything from you... just now enjoying the artistic depth of a clear water, and that height of a decent man. --- ### xmetalhead *2003-09-15 18:50* | [User Profile](/od/user/80) Johnny Cash, even until the end was making great music. Earlier this year he recorded the song "Hurt", originally written and performed by Nine Inch Nails. He also made a video for it and it features many quick-edit snapshots of Johnny in his heydey. I heard he recorded this particular song after his wife passed away. I credit Mr Cash for his amazing ability to make me love a cover song when I simply hated the orginal version. RIP JC --- ### Texas Dissident *2003-12-30 22:40* | [User Profile](/od/user/1) **[url=http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0312/opinion/candler.html]Johnny of the Cross[/url]** Good article at First Things. ---