Recommendations of the Editorial team
Johnny Cash was a biblical character. He was like such an old preacher, one of the dangerous, wild. Like a western hero from the cinema. A giant.
And unlike anyone else I know, he never lost it. I don’t think we will meet you again like him. Of course, the first thing you will remember him is the originality of his music. I heard Johnny Cash for the first time when he released “I Walk the Line” in 1956.
I had never heard anything comparable. Elvis already had a lot of hits at the time, but “I walk the line” was something completely different. It didn’t sound like country music that was popular at the time. Johnny was surrounded by such dark energy.
As a songwriter, I always loved his texts. At the beginning of his career, John released a whole series of very powerful songs within a very short time.
For me, Johnny Cash’s best song “Big River” was
For me, the best was always “big river”. It is just so well written and so different from everything else. The lines don’t even rhyme. “I met Her Accidentary in St. Paul, Minnesota/ and It Tore Me Up Every Time I Heard Her Drawl.” He said so clearly.
“Then you tok me to St. Louis Later on, Down the River/ A Freight Said She’s Been/ But She’s Gone, Boy, She’s Gone/ I Found Her Trail in Memphis/ But She Just Walked Up the Block/ She Raised A FEW Eyebrows, and then she Went on Down Alone.”
When I saw him live for the first time, I was on vacation from the Army and drove to Nashville. He appeared in Grand Ole Opry and I stood behind the stage and watched. He was the most exciting performer I had ever seen. At that time it was thin like a snake – and under power. He crept over the stage like a panther. He looked like he was exploding up there. And sometimes he did that too. A few times, he broke all the headlights during his appearances there because they didn’t invite him for a while.
The most important thing about Johnny Cash was his integrity
The most important thing about John – and everyone just felt that – was his integrity. The integrity in dealing with his music, with his life and with other people.
He stood in front of Bob Dylan when he was criticized by everyone in the music business for his change from folk to the electric guitar. In the 80s he did the same for me when I went to Nicaragua and was attacked for it.
I found his last album “The Man Comes Around” great. I drove on my tractor lawnmower, heard it with headphones and just had to cry. His version of “Danny Boy” makes me ready every time.
I think you will remember him as someone who developed as a person and artist. In the beginning he was this wild guy, one like Hank Williams, and later he was almost respected like one of the fathers in our country.
He was friends with President and Billy Graham. You had the feeling that his face actually heard on the Mount Rushmore.