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Country singing legend Johnny Cash dies Johnny Cash, "The Man in Black" who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as "Folsom Prison Blues," "I Walk the Line," and "A Boy Named Sue," died today. He was 71.
"Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure," Cash's manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville.
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This is so sad. I just heard on the radio yesterday that he was on his way back into the studio to finish his next album. I commented to my wife that I didn't think he was going to be able to record anymore and was surprised he had held on this long. He will be missed...
He did a really nice job on a duet he did on his daughter's newest album. "Hurt" was amazing.
When I was a kid, my parents used to put on "Ring of Fire" and make me sing it for their friends. I knew all the words back then, and I really dug (and still do) those cool trumpets!
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Johnny Cash may have been arrested for minor violations during his career, but the rumor that he spent time in prison comes from his song "Folsom Prison Blues," which is purely fictional. Apparently his lyrics were very convincing.
Cash did have an obsession with his dark side, and his music reflects that. He was truly an artist that allowed his listeners into his darkest thoughts, which is perhaps a more intimate knowledge than a lot of the sexual lyrics that are so popular among today's musicians.
His (semi) autobiography: "Cash" is a really good book. What's odd, to me, is that while I was never a big Johnny Cash fan, it occurred to me several years ago that the backdrop of my life included his music, and that although I didn't own a single album, I picked up his book and read it. His life story is truly fascinating, and I find his personal philosophy wonderful and inspirational.
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The first time I heard "A Boy Named Sue" was one summer Saturday morning around 6:30 a.m. in the back of a station wagon cruising along the Arizona Strip between Kanab and St. George on my way to some Scout merit badge extravaganza. It was the first time I realized that country music could a) have a sense of humor and b) have a dark, unsettling edge to it.
My favorite cover of "Ring of Fire" is by Social Distortion (of course), but the Wall Of Voodoo one is pretty good too in its own quirky way.
I'm pretty sure that God doesn't mind Johnny wearing black in heaven.
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"His video for the cover he did of NIN's Hurt was one of the most powerful things I've seen lately."
Olivet, I sobbed and sobbed the first time I saw that video. When June Carter stands on the stairs, looking down on him? Oh. My. Goodness. That was a powerful moment.
"Ring of Fire" was actually written by June, I believe, and was about their love for one another, which, at the time, was unrequited. They fell in love while still attached to spouses.
When June Carter died a few months ago, I wondered how long Johnny would last. I think there are certain people who are paired together for a lifetime of lifetimes, and that this is the final home for them.
Speaking of which, MY favorite song is "The Green, Green Grass of Home," which I am not even sure is the title. I grew up with Johnny Cash, because he was one of my dad's favorites.
Very sad day, yet happy for John and June. I really, really believe that.
I also believe, with Ralphie, that he will continue on in his influence over many, many musicians.
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He played at the original Woodstock. He toured with Elvis. He was up for Video of the year at MTV'S Video Music Awards last month.
When JLo and what's his face break up, saying famous people can never be happilly married, we can all point to Johnie and June Cash and let them know that, "You will never be as famous as Johnie Cash, and they managed it with style."
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This news makes me sad. I have only heard a few of his songs, most notably his cover of my namesake's Thirteen, but that alone was enough to give me an undying respect for the man. I do take comfort that at least he did not outlive his wife for long... now they are back together.
We need a bittersweet graemlin.
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For all you Cash fans, he and Willie Nelson are on VH1 on a taped acoustic set (Storytellers?) right now, 9:30 ET
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My introduction to Folsom Prison Blues was actually the parody of it, sung by Krusty the Clown on the Simpsons.
My mom used to sing "Look at them Beans" or whatever it's called, when she gardened. It made us laugh. Ring of Fire was a great one.
The thing about the Hurt video was that, on some level, it was obvious that he was not long for this world. It gave the song a lot more depth than the video with the tortured-but-young Trent Reznor putting his hand in his pants with stop-motion decomposing dead things on a big screen. I mean, GAH.
I love Trent and all, but you look at the two videos and you can't help but think that he really doesn't know from pain.
When Trent sings, "Everyone I know goes away in the end" I can't help but think, "well, that's cuz you're a freak."
When Johnny Cash sings it, you can just feel the horror of someone who has outlived so many people who were important to him. It's more powerful because somewhere in the back of your head you know that if you are blessed with a long life (which everyone claims to want) then there will be many, many painful goodbyes.
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It's been a sad day of reflection for many of us. Sad for ourselves, of course, and what we've lost, while knowing that he's with June, as it should be.
For those looking to take a few strolls down memory lane, here's the weekend programming for CMT, which will re-air the interview we just watched this evening, as well as a tribute, and one of his prison concerts. For those of you unsure of why some of us are so moved by this loss, here's your chance to find out more about this legend. http://www.cmt.com/cmt/event/cash.weekend.091203.jhtml
quote:CMT Celebrates the Life and Career of Johnny Cash With a Weekend of Programming Dedicated to the Man in Black CMT News Special: Johnny Cash Remembered to Premiere Saturday, Sept. 13; CMT to World Premiere Video of Late June Carter Cash
As the world mourns the death of Johnny Cash, CMT is looking back at the life of the Man in Black with a weekend of special programming featuring the premiere of the CMT News Special: Johnny Cash Remembered on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. ET/PT. The one-hour news special will pay tribute to Cash and include the world premiere video, "Keep on the Sunny Side," from the just released album of the late June Carter Cash, which features powerful personal moments spanning the decades-long relationship between June and Johnny. Throughout the weekend, CMT will also rebroadcast the special 90-minute episode of CMT Inside Fame: Johnny Cash and A Concert: Behind the Prison Walls, a 1976 concert of Cash performing for inmates inside the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville.
CMT News Special: Johnny Cash Remembered -- Hosted by CMT's Katie Cook, this one-hour special will reflect back on the life and career of Cash. Featuring performance clips, celebrity tributes and rare footage of the legend, the hour will also include the world premiere of "Keep on the Sunny Side," the video from the late June Carter Cash's album, Wildwood Flower, released earlier this week.
During the hour-long special, CMT News will share memories with some of Cash's closest friends and colleagues from around the music world. If you would like to help CMT News honor a true American legend, please fill out our special comment form. Fan comments may be used throughout the special.
Complete schedule: Premieres Saturday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. ET/PT; and Sunday, Sept. 14 at 12 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET/PT.
CMT Inside Fame: Johnny Cash -- In this exclusive CMT interview taped last December at Cash's Jamaican home, Cash explores his uncommon life and celebrated career. This special 90-minute episode is Cash's last in-depth television interview. Also featured in the profile are Cash's wife of 35 years, June Carter Cash, daughter Rosanne Cash and brother Tommy Cash. Other interviews include Vince Gill, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Rodney Crowell, Wynonna, Kix Brooks, Ronnie Dunn, Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels and Sheryl Crow.
Complete schedule: Friday, Sept. 12 at 6:30 and 10:30 p.m. ET/PT; Saturday, Sept. 13 at 5 and 9 p.m. ET/PT; and Sunday, Sept. 14 at 4 and 10 p.m. ET/PT.
A Concert: Behind the Prison Walls -- This half-hour concert from 1976 features Cash performing for inmates inside the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville, Tenn. It is only one of two prison concerts Cash ever shot for television.
Complete schedule: Saturday, Sept. 13 at 6:30 and 10:30 p.m. ET/PT; and Sunday, Sept. 14 10:30 a.m., 5:30 and 11:30 p.m. ET/PT.
quote: NEWSDAY (August 24, 2003) The Power of Cash His stunning video for 'Hurt' may put JOHNNY CASH at center stage at this year's MTV awards By Glenn Gamboa
It was a party like countless other parties at the South by Southwest Music Conference this year. Groups of industry muckety- mucks were enjoying Lost Highway Records' Texas hospitality, trading insights about what bands to look out for that week or what local barbecue joint was best.
Then, the Johnny Cash video started. All the talking stopped as if the air in the room suddenly belonged only to Cash and his stunning video for the Nine Inch Nails' song "Hurt." The power of the 71-year-old Man in Black's performance gripped the crowd, especially when it was juxtaposed against footage of him in his younger days. Four minutes later, when the video ended, the usually jaded crowd erupted in applause, a rare acknowledgment that something special had just passed.
"I have never seen anything like it," says Rick Rubin, who produced "Hurt" and the rest of the "American IV: The Man Comes Around" CD. "If you went to a two-hour movie and were moved as much as that video moves you, it would be a great accomplishment. To do it in four minutes is incredible."
The boost the video has given Cash's already legendary career has been incredible as well. The video for "Hurt" helped generate buzz that got the song played on both rock and country radio. It helped turn "American IV: The Man Comes Around" into Cash's first gold studio record since 1971, when "The World of Johnny Cash" went gold. And last month, it landed Cash six MTV Video Music Awards nominations - more than 50 Cent, Eminem, Beyoncé and the rest of the MTV cool kids, except for Missy Elliott and Justin Timberlake.
Will Cash take home the top video of the year and best male video awards at Radio City Music Hall Thursday night? No one is sure. Nevertheless, the nominations, which have given the video a new life, already have made Cash a winner. "I am overwhelmed by this great honor," Cash says in a statement. "I thank you all for thinking of me. It's been 48 years since I cut my first record, and it's nice that people are still digging them up."
It's quite a haul for a video that didn't turn out the way it was supposed to. "I had conceived a video that was a stylized concept that we were going to shoot in L.A.," says Mark Romanek, who directed the video. "I had conceived of him performing in a black void, surrounded by memorabilia, detritus and antiques. As he would sing the song, wheelbarrows would come in and dismantle the mountain of stuff until he is left in an empty space. In retrospect, it wouldn't have had the power the final piece had."
Romanek, best known for directing "One Hour Photo" starring Robin Williams, as well as a string of high- profile videos such as Janet Jackson's "Got 'Til It's Gone" and Fiona Apple's "Criminal," had to shift gears quickly because Cash wasn't feeling well enough to fly out to Los Angeles. "I had to shoot it in Nashville," he says. "Rick approved the final budget on a Tuesday, and Johnny was leaving Saturday morning for his annual trip to Jamaica, so I left on the red-eye on a Wednesday to shoot it in John's house and the House of Cash Museum."
Part of the power of "Hurt" comes from how realistic the video is. "In most videos, there's a lot of artifice," Romanek says. "This one doesn't have any, except him lip-synching the song. It's shot in his own home. The museum had suffered some flood damage, so that's some of the stuff in there. The archival footage is factual. Even the crucifixion scene is from a feature film he did called 'The Gospel Road.' The only thing staged was the banquet."
The banquet scene is part of the video's climax, in which Cash is surrounded by a glutton's feast of champagne, lobster, turkey. Instead of enjoying it, he ruins it by pouring wine over the food - keeping with the song's theme of self-loathing and actively destroying the good things in life with bad choices.
"You don't direct Johnny Cash much," Romanek says. "He got the idea he was free to try stuff. On the last take of the video, I told him, 'If you want to get angry or something, it's the last take, so we can mess things up.' John got the idea to pour the wine out."
After the filming was completed, Romanek says the curators of the Cash museum gave him four crates of film and videotape footage to use in the video. "We didn't really know what we had, and I didn't know if we would use it," Romanek says. "When my editor, Robert Duffy, and I put the archival material against what we had shot for the first time, a shiver ran up our spine. We had to stop. We spent the next few days screening through the mountain of stuff, setting aside clips we wanted to use. The whole process took about five weeks, while the usual video is done in five or six days."
The result, however, was worth the wait. "I was shocked and surprised," says Rubin, who in addition to producing the Cash album runs American Recordings, which released it. "I knew that Mark went to Nashville to do a different video than he was planning to do. He kind of made it up as he went, and the result was such a shock. The whole subject of mortality is avoided in our culture, yet it resonates with everyone."
Rubin says the special video treatment matches the special nature of the song itself, which he sent to Cash to consider recording for the "American IV: The Man Comes Around" CD. "We always look for songs for him, songs about very serious subjects," Rubin says. "I thought 'Hurt' really suited him when I imagined how Johnny Cash, The Man in Black, would do it. I loved it the first time I heard it. He reads it as an anti-drug song. He takes it in and feels it. He feels the words were written from the perspective of having given life to drugs with regret and what the result was."
The song opens with "I hurt myself today to see if I still feel" and winds through a journey of self-loathing ("You could have it all, my empire of dirt/I will let you down, I will make you hurt") before hope comes at the end ("If I could start again a million miles away/I would keep myself, I would find a way").
"I think what moves people about the video is that it makes them question their own priorities," Romanek says. "In his life, he's achieved all of this. He couldn't have achieved more. He couldn't have led a fuller life. Yet he is subject to the same facts of mortality that we all are. The awards and accolades and the fame, in the scheme of things, really isn't as important as loved ones and your health. In an age of our rabid celebrity- obsessed culture, this is just completely revisionist."
The success of "Hurt" has helped lift Cash's spirits, especially after the death of June Carter Cash, his wife of 35 years, in May. Rubin says that since June's death, Cash, who suffers from the nervous-system disease autonomic neuropathy, actually has gotten stronger. "He has changed his diet and really improved his condition," says Rubin, adding that he is currently working with Cash on a new album. "We speak almost every day on the phone, and he is just getting stronger and more lively. The shock of losing June was overwhelming to him, so he has decided to focus on work. He wants to change whatever things that he can, so he is really working hard on his music and his health."
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"When Johnny Cash sings it, you can just feel the horror of someone who has outlived so many people who were important to him."
Yes, Olivet(whose crit I have NOT forgotten!), but I also think he is talking about people he drove away with his behavior. He was terribly addicted, and the Carters basically tough-loved him through it. There are stories of locking him in his room when he was really whacky.
So, I got bothe the driven-away, and the gone-away-via-death from the video.
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Yeah, but the driven-away part was there in the NIN nails version, too. That's what I meant. I like NIN a lot, but Cash's performance of that particular song was more layered, simply because of who he is, and the qualities of his voice.
P.S. I have not forgotten yours either, I just had a few people who've been waiting longer for feedback from me than you have. Hard as that may be to believe.
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quote:I went out there In search of experience To taste and to touch And to feel as much As a man can Before he repents
I went out searching Looking for one good man A spirit who would not bend or break Who would sit at his father's right hand I went out walking With a bible and a gun The word of God lay heavy on my heart I was sure I was the one Now Jesus, don't you wait up Jesus, I'll be home soon Yeah I went out for the papers Told her I'd be back by noon
Yeah I left with nothing But the thought you'd be there too Looking for you
Yeah I left with nothing Nothing but the thought of you I went wandering
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Hard as that may be to believe.
