18 Tales from the Life of American Legend Johnny Cash

Larry Holzwarth - September 21, 2018

13. The Johnny Cash Show began as a summer replacement for The Hollywood Palace

When Johnny Cash was approached to host a summer replacement variety show he was given a wide latitude of creative freedom, though he was still required to present the show business luminaries which attracted advertisers. Although the program originated in Nashville, Cash did not limit his musical performers to country and western stars. Bob Dylan appeared on the program, as did Joni Mitchell, The Cowsills (real life inspiration for the Partridge Family), The Monkees, Melanie, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and many other acts from outside the world of country music. Cash was not above generating controversy either, supporting performances of protest songs which opposed the Vietnam War.

During one taping of the show June Carter appeared, and told the host that she wanted to introduce a friend before bringing Ralph Edwards onstage for a presentation of This Is Your Life, featuring Cash. It was during the taping that Cash publicly thanked Sheriff Ralph Jones, who appeared on the program. The Johnny Cash Show was canceled in 1971, though CBS reprised the program for four weeks in 1976. That same year began a series of Christmas specials featuring Johnny and the Carter Family, which aired almost annually through 1985. The programs on CBS were more focused on comedy and holiday music, rather than the eclectic collection of musical performers which Johnny had featured on his weekly series.

<< Previous

NEXT >>

14. The Johnny Cash prison concerts

Johnny Cash began playing concerts in prisons and county jails in the late 1950s, during the height of his first period of heavy drug use. On New Year’s Day, 1958, Johnny Cash and his entourage played a concert at San Quentin State Prison, with one of the inmates who saw him perform being a twenty year old petty thief and burglar named Merle Haggard. Haggard was serving a fifteen year sentence for a burglary for which he had been convicted two years earlier, at the age of eighteen. Haggard was released early for that conviction, in part because of his youth, and left prison determined to become a musician, admiring Cash for his arrogance towards the guards, which created for him a new base of fans for him and his music.

In 1968 Cash played a concert at Folsom Prison, which he recorded and released as a live album which rejuvenated his flagging career. The following year he recorded a concert at San Quentin, which led to another successful album. Both of the albums reached number one on the country music charts. In 1969 Cash sold more records than the Beatles, with 6.5 million shipped. He played a concert in a Swedish prison in 1972, Osteraker Prison, producing another live album (in which Osteraker was substituted for San Quentin) and in 1976 performed at a Tennessee prison, which was videotaped for television. The prison concerts coupled with Cash’s bad boy image produced a perception among some of his newly won fans that Cash was a former prison inmate, which though widespread was untrue.

<< Previous

NEXT >>

15. He became a Native American activist in song and actions

As early as during his first albums for Columbia Records in the late 1950s, Cash was recording songs describing the plight of American Indians, in terms sympathetic to the Indians, and was encountering resistance from his label due to his position being in opposition to mainstream country and western fans of the day. In 1964, following the success of his song I Walk the Line, he recorded an album entitled Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. It was Cash’s twentieth album, and was rejected by radio stations and fans for its perceived anti-American stance. Cash decided to fight back against the censorship by mainstream country radio stations and promoted the album heavily.

One song in particular, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, told the story of Pima native Ira Hayes, one of the six Marines who raised the American flag during the battle for Iwo Jima. Cash created a full page advertisement for the song in Billboard Magazine, calling radio stations and disk jockeys who refused to play it cowards and “gutless”. He personally purchased 1,000 copies of the record and distributed it to radio stations, encouraging and in some instances daring them to play the record. Eventually The Ballad of Ira Hayes rose to number three on the country charts, driving sales of the album with it. Bitter Tears reached number two on the album charts later in the year, and Cash’s reputation as a supporter of Indian rights was cemented by his other work on television and in interviews.

<< Previous

NEXT >>

15. Becoming the legendary Man in Black

When Johnny Cash began performing on stage, he and his band agreed to wear matching shirts, selecting the color black because it was easier to appear to be clean despite the repeated wearings during a series of performances, often several in a single day. By the 1970s this had evolved to Cash appearing dressed in black from head to toe, often with black sunglasses, and usually wearing a long black coat. His appearance was a notable separation from the majority of country and western stars of the day, who favored rhinestones, decorated hats, and flamboyant suits and other garb. Cash later explained his reasons for favoring black, both in the song Man in Black and in interviews.

Cash explained that he wore black as a sign of mourning for those killed in Vietnam, and for their families in sympathy for their loss. He claimed black was a protest against prisoners being held under sentences which were far too long in relation to the gravity of their crime. He also claimed it was a symbol that he stood for the poor and suffering around the country and the world, and once said that black stood for those whose lives had been torn apart by drugs. In another interview he said that he wore black simply because he liked the color. By the 1970s, especially following his successful television show, Cash was known as the Man in Black to the point that advertisers started to exploit his image.

<< Previous

NEXT >>

16. Cash became a marketing icon in the mid-seventies

In the mid-1970s Johnny Cash had gone some time without a hit record, and the sales of his older recordings began to decline. The mid-seventies also featured the first oil crisis in the United States, and the oil companies were widely believed to be gouging the public, bringing what the president referred to as “windfall’ profits while there were shortages of gasoline at the pumps. Cash chose this period to participate in an advertising campaign for Amoco, which also cut into his popularity, despite his reputation for integrity in expressing his opinions. He made a second campaign for STP, a petroleum and gasoline additive which claimed to increase gas mileage, a new consideration for Americans.

He also built on his image as a country and western star to participate in a marketing campaign for Lionel electric trains. By the 1970s electric trains in general were losing popularity to slot cars and other model cars, and those electric trains which did sell were for the most part the smaller HO gauge. The bigger Lionel trains and the larger track sets they required were dying out. Cash called on the traditions of Lionel trains for Christmas in a series of commercials which kept his image on television, themed by his music, during the middle of the decade. Lionel sales continued to drop as the idea of electric trains around the Christmas tree was replaced with a growing number of electronic toys.

<< Previous

NEXT >>

17. Johnny Cash and the Billy Graham Crusades

Johnny Cash and Billy Graham became close friends, which led to them working together to produce the project The Gospel Road, a film and soundtrack album released in 1973. The film tells the story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as written by Cash, and the soundtrack album contains numerous songs from throughout his career, connected by narrations during which Cash describes action on the screen during the film. Cash considered the film, which he wrote, to be an explanation of his personal religious beliefs, rather than a strict presentation of the biblical story, and it is reflected in the songs which are selected for the film. The songs include gospel recordings along with his signature, Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.

Johnny and June Carter appeared in numerous Billy Graham Crusades, including several of the evangelist’s TV specials, though he also backslid into drug abuse during the period. Cash recorded an album of gospel songs which he named A Believer Sings the Truth, though Columbia refused to release it when he presented it to executives in 1979. Despite being under contract to Columbia Records, Cash released the album on a private label. Cash’s involvement with Billy Graham was amplified by his own Christmas specials, and his frequent inclusion of gospel and religious music on his more mainstream country albums during the 1970s.

<< Previous

NEXT >>

18. He gained respect as a serious actor in movies made for television

Besides his work as the host of his own show, Johnny Cash gained critical acclaim for acting performances in several made-for-television movies, as well as being a guest star in both mini-series and episodic television. His first appearance in film was in 1961, in the noir film Five Minutes to Live. It was not well received. In 1971 Cash appeared with Kirk Douglas in The Gunfight, a film paid for by the Jicarilla Apache tribe, in which he shared top billing, but the film did little at the box office. He also did narration for a 2003 film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro, as well as voiceover work in other films of a documentary nature.

But in television he demonstrated his considerable acting ability, in both sit-coms and episodes of crime dramas, including a well-received episode of Columbo in 1974, and another on Little House on the Prairie in 1976. He was in the miniseries North and South, portraying abolitionist John Brown during the build-up to the American Civil War. He produced and starred in the television films The Pride of Jesse Hallam; The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James (as Frank James); and a remake of the film Stagecoach, in which he played Curly Rogers. He made several appearances on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and also appeared in a voiceover on The Simpsons, as Space Coyote. He had many other roles, throughout his successful career on the small screen.