John M. Alexander - The Man in Song: A Discographic Biography of Johnny Cash

WHO WOULD HAVE DREAMED that a humble sharecroppers son would go on to become one of the most honored and beloved figures in popular music? J. R. Cash was born on February 26, 1932, in the town of Kingsland in Cleveland County, Arkansas, which is southwest of Pine Bluff. Kingsland is actually located between Pine Bluff and Little Rock. He was the fourth of seven children born to Ray Cash, a farmer, and his wife, Carrie Rivers Cash. The Cash children were older brothers Roy and Jack, older sister Margaret Louise, and younger sisters Reba Ann and Joanne and baby brother Tommy. In 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family moved to Dyess, Arkansas. It was here that he started accruing material for the songs he would later write that were steeped in the cold, hard realities of the Great Depression.

J. R. would ultimately be known as Johnny Cash and would go on to sell more than fifty million albums in forty years and one day receive the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. He was, and is, an American treasure who holds the distinction of being the only performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Hed certainly come a long way from those hot and stifling fields where he picked and chopped cotton during the Great Depression. And the road was often a weary one. His mother always believed that God had anointed her son and that he was destined for greatness.

The one saving grace during those early, tumultuous years was the music that came flowing out of the family radio. Johnny loved to listen to the songs that carried him away from the burdens of daily life in the cotton fields. As he would later recall, he listened to the radio by the coal-oil light until he fell asleep with what little contentment he could find from the songs of the day. Of course years later his mothers faith in him would be rewarded with an amazing career built on his love of music. And, in as much as the man defined the songs he wrote and selected, the songs also helped define the man.

Many books have been written about the life of Johnny Cash. His trials and tribulations, his bouts with drugs and painkillers, his marriage to his first sweetheart Vivian Liberto, the birth of their four daughters Rosanne, Kathleen, Cindy, and Tara, his romance with and marriage to the love of his life, June Carter, and the birth of their son John Carter Cash. But through it all, its the incredible catalog of songs that ultimately defines the true artistry of the man.