To the editor:
In September, a bronze statue of the legendary “Man in Black,” Johnny Cash, was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol with a guitar on his back and a Bible in his hand.
Cash never got there singing love songs, but instead, was both a country and folk singer having won top prize at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival doing a Dylan song. Cash done train songs, famous people song — for example, “Mr. Garfield’s Been Shot Down,” and the Marine “Ira Hayes,” the only survivor that helped raise our flag at Iwo Jima. Johnny Cash, several years before his death, performed live before Congress “That Ragged Old Flag.
Cash also sang about ordinary people of our land: their hardships, trials and tribulations.
Johnny Cash grew up near the small town of Dyess, Arkansas, in the flatlands of the northeastern part of the state not far west of Interstate 55 and the Rock Island Line. I’ve often wondered if his “How High’s the Water” song was something his family may have experienced living in a flood-prone area.
His 1963 greatest hit “Ring of Fire” — he claimed while working on the song he dreamed of hearing Spanish horns that helped make the song the hit it was. Critics called his voice “earthy” and the Carter Sisters singing background helped him immensely. Johnny Cash introduced a bass rhythm, like none before him, that started a recording career that spanned nearly 50 years.
How many songs did Johnny Cash record? I know not the number, but a multitude. I’m still hearing his songs I’ve never heard before, the latest discovery being “Lumberjack.” My favorites of his gospel selection, “Daddy Sang Bass” and his chilling rendition of “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)?”
Jan Howard, in her book, tells of Johnny, June and Jan’s husband Harlin Howard waiting outside KWPM radio station in West Plains while she was a gust on her friend’s program. As they came out together, her friend whispered, “Wonder who that convict is,” meaning Johnny Cash who was here for deer season in the mid ‘60s.
The only time Cash was in prison was to make lots of cash doing two live concerts at two different prisons. Out of one came “Folsom Prison Blues,” and the other, “A Boy Named Sue.”
