He had success with strange and unexpected numbers- “A Boy Named Sue”; “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”; “Hurt”, his cover of a Nine Inch Nails song. Ever the iconoclast, when country star Johnny Cash had his hit ABC television show out of Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium from 1969 to 1971, he delighted in featuring such non-country artists as Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Louis Armstrong, and his friend Bob Dylan. When then President Nixon asked him to sing “Welfare Cadillac” at the White House, Cash instead opted for “What Is Truth” and “Man In Black”.

         Recording first in Memphis with Sam Phillips of Elvis fame, his breakthrough hit in 1956 was the simple, chugging “I Walk the Line”, his pledge of fidelity to first wife Vivian.  Other iconic recordings include two career defining LPs, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and Johnny Cash at San Quentin, along with the singles, the mariachi flavored “Ring of Fire” and “Folsom Prison Blues”. Indeed, Cash cultivated an outlaw image for much of his career and was greatly moved by his interaction and acceptance by inmates, though he, personally, spent little time in jail, just a few overnighters, mostly for drug related offenses.

         Cash was instrumental in helping the careers of Merle Haggard who was an inmate when Johnny played San Quentin and Kris Kristofferson who once landed a helicopter on Cash’s property to get his attention. As Kris said of Cash, the former sharecroppers’ son, “He went from being this guy who was as wild as Hank Williams to being almost as respected as one of the fathers of our country.”

         -Steve Williams (6/19/23) – Greatest Recording Artists Blog Post #20