Cash recounted these events many times — it's published in his memoir and in magazines and books that cover his life. My truck did, and it's dead, so you can't question it." Johnny Cash — the Man in Black, a founding member of the outlaw country music genre, minister, movie star, songwriter, the list goes on — started out poor, born in Arkansas as the fourth of seven children (four boys, three girls).As Biography tells us, he didn't start out as Johnny; his given name was just the initials J.R., a not uncommon practice in that part of the country. Johnny Cash was the fourth of seven children, born February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Ark. Because if I don't have something to focus on, I'm gonna die. The song was originally produced in 1957 for Sun Records, and Cash chose to revisit it many times in his career. Johnny Cash is an icon whose music and image resonate among multiple generations. Johnny Cash is new to our collection of officially licensed merchandise. That's when I got the idea that maybe we could be extremely candid about the state of Johnny's health — as candid as Johnny has always been in his songs.". Music legends Johnny Cash and June Carter's had a fire of a love that they could not put out, no matter how hard they may have tried. His touring days were over. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his career. Haggard's thoughts were echoed by Cash's friend and music producer, Rick Rubin, who said that Cash somehow could still record and keep his spirits high. "The drugs were at work. From Johnny Cash 1979 Christmas Special - Other Guests were Andy Kaufman, Tom T. Hall, Anne Murray. In his autobiography, Cash remembered begging his brother to skip the work and head down to their fishing hole, but Jack said no. On July 5, 2003, Cash's performance with his band lasted all of half an hour. The word "legend" gets thrown around a lot, but there's no question that it applies to Johnny Cash. Eventually, he stopped taking amphetamines, but his vigilance would sometimes wane. He also saw the benefits of keeping busy; mere days after June's funeral, Cash was back in the recording studio with Rick Rubin, adding to the trove of songs the two had stockpiled for the American Recordings series. Haggard added that Cash didn't take care of himself and didn't eat well for a while, which made his bones brittle. She came down for a short visit tonight, I guess, from heaven, to visit with me tonight and give me courage and inspiration, like she always has.". Marshall Grant, Cash's friend and former bass player, says it never happened. The song became an instant hit and was released as a single in several different formats. And Robert Hilburn, Cash's biographer, notes that the Nickajack Cave was underwater in the fall of 1967; the Army Corps of Engineers had dammed it up. "The spirit of June Carter overshadows me tonight," Cash said. That's a pretty insightful way of saying that Johnny Cash, for all his strength and all the respect he commanded, was a man who had little trouble over the years succumbing to his temptations, testing the faith and respect others had in him. While he was originally misdiagnosed with Shy-Drager syndrome, his doctors later diagnosed him with autonomic neuropathy in 2000, a complication of diabetes. To cope, Cash spent most of his energy on work. According to another of his daughters, Cindy, Vivian would often put her children in the car and go looking for a drunken Cash around town. His struggles continued in the '80s, when he was prescribed pain medication for various surgeries and illnesses and continued to take them after he no longer needed them. One of his daughters, Cindy Cash, was visiting him from Mississippi when he told her to stay and not leave him by himself. Cash came from humble beginnings and worked hard to launch his career, choosing to make music until the very end of his life despite several physical obstacles. He was a main of mountainous religious faith, but at his darkest moment, he is said to have crawled into a cave, never feeling farther from his God. Although Johnny Cash was in severe pain in the last year of his life and struggled to get things done, he remained stoic and kept his pain to himself, preferring to distract himself with work. "The last six months, we were recording really heavy old blues-based things like 'Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down' and 'John the Revelator.'". One of the most heartbreaking moments Johnny Cash lived through in his last year was losing his wife, June Carter, to heart failure. According to Rolling Stone, Cash got back to work three days after June passed away. "It got to where it was like somebody else was coming home, not my daddy," his eldest daughter Rosanne said. 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