Johnny Cash (0)

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John R. "Johnny" Cash was born in February 26, 1932
Kingsland, Arkansas, U.S.
He was the fourth of seven children to Ray Cash and Carrie
Cloveree Rivers.
Cash was named John R. Cash in a compromise made by his
parents when they wanted to name him different names.
He went by the name J. R. throughout his young life as a
shortened version of his real name.
In 1955, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name.
In March 1935, when Cash was three years old, the family
settled in Dyess, Arkansas.
J.R. was working in cotton fields beginning at age five,
singing along with his family simultaneously while working.
The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which
later inspired him to write the song "Five Feet High and
Rising".
His family's economic and personal struggles during the
Great Depression inspired many of his songs, especially
those about other people facing similar difficulties.
Cash was very close to his older brother, Jack.
In May 1944, Jack was pulled into a whirling head saw in the
mill where he worked and was almost cut in two.
He suffered for over a week before he died on May 20, 1944,
at age 15.
Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident.
Cash's early memories were dominated by gospel music and
radio.
Taught by his mother and a childhood friend, Cash began
playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy.
In high school he sang on a local radio station; decades
later he released an album of traditional gospel songs,
called My Mother's Hymn Book.
He was also significantly influenced by traditional Irish
music that he heard performed weekly by Dennis Day
on the Jack Benny radio program.
Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force basic training at
Lackland Air Force Base and technical training at Brooks Air
Force Base, both in San Antonio, Texas.
Cash was assigned to a U.S. Air Force Security Service unit,
assigned as a code intercept operator for Soviet Army
transmissions at Landsberg, Germany.
Where he created his first band named The Landsberg
Barbarians.
He was the first radio operator to pick up the news of the
death of Joseph Stalin.
After he was honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant on
July 3, 1954, he returned to Texas.
On August 7, 1954, one month after
his discharge, he married his first wife,
Vivian Liberto, in San Antonio.
In 1954, Cash and Vivian moved to
Memphis, Tennessee.
They had four daughters: Rosanne,
Kathy, Cindy and Tara.
Cash's drug and alcohol abuse,
constant touring, and affairs with other
women, and his close relationship
with future wife June Carter, led
Liberto to file for divorce in 1966.
In 1968, 13 years after they
first met backstage at the
Grand Ole Opry, Cash
proposed to June Carter, an
established country singer,
during a live performance in
London, Ontario, marrying
on March 1, 1968 in
Franklin, Kentucky.
They had one child
together, John Carter Cash
(born March 3, 1970).
In 1997, Cash was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative
disease Shy-Drager syndrome, a form of multiple system
atrophy.
They work together and tour for 35 years, until June Carter
died in 2003.
Cash died just four months later in September 12, 2003.
He played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist
Marshall Grant.
His first recordings at Sun,in 1955 "Hey Porter" and
"Cry! Cry! Cry!"
His first prison concert was held on January 1, 1958 at
San Quentin State Prison
In the early 1960s, Cash toured with the Carter Family.
Cash started drinking heavily and became addicted to
amphetamines and barbiturates.
For a brief time, he shared an apartment in Nashville with
Waylon Jennings.
In June 1965, his truck caught fire due to an overheated
wheel bearing, triggering a forest fire that burned 508 acres
(2.06 km2), in Los Padres National Forest in California. The
federal government sued him and was awarded $125,172
($871,303 today).
Cash eventually settled the case and paid $82,001.
Despite landing in jail seven times for misdemeanors, each stay
lasted only a single night.
In 1967, Cash's duet with June Carter, "Jackson", won a
Grammy Award.
From 1969 to 1971, Cash starred in his own television show,
The Johnny Cash Show, on the ABC network.
He regularly performed dressed all in black.
In total, he wrote over 1,000 songs and released dozens of
albums.