Johnny Cash Born: 1932 Died: 2003

Cash was born J.R. Cash in Kingsland, Arkansas in 1932, the son of poor Southern Baptist cotton farmers, Ray Cash and Carrie Cloveree Rivers. 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. Cash's father had a severe drinking problem and was physically and emotionally abusive to his family. By age five Cash was working in the cotton fields, singing along with his family as they worked. Cash was very close to his brother Jack. In 1944, a tragic incident occurred that affected Johnny Cash for the rest of his life: Jack was pulled into a whirring table saw in the mill where he worked, and almost cut in two.

He suffered for over a week before he died. Cash always talked of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident because he had gone out fishing that day. On his deathbed, the young man had visions of Heaven and angels before he died. Almost sixty years later, Johnny still talked of looking forward to meeting his brother in Heaven. His early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. He began playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy, and in high school sang on a local radio station. He was dubbed "John" upon enlisting as a radio operator in the Air Force, which refused to accept initials as his name. Thereafter, he was known as Johnny and sometimes as John R. While an airman in West Germany, Cash wrote one of his most famous songs, "Folsom Prison Blues" after seeing the B-Movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.

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. At night, he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant (the Tennessee Two). Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to garner a recording contract. Sun producer Cowboy Jack Clement met with the young singer first, and suggested that Cash return to meet producer Sam Phillips. 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. 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.

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. In 1957, Johnny Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. 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. 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.