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- Remembering Johnny Cash
- By The Rockzillaworld Staff
 Cash Out of Hand
When Johnny Cash passed in September of this year the world,
just for a moment, simply stopped. Here in the States, where
the second anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York
had put me personally on edge in an entirely unexpected manner,
the somber news of Friday September 12th left a hole time is
not likely to fill. That Thursday for me was ghoulish simply
because of the termination point for my morning commute
now that I'm back in Texas I work in the tallest squarest building
in downtown Dallas. If you've watched Cowboys football you've
seen the place, that gleaming tower glinting silver in the midday
sun or glowing neon green against the backdrop of Al Michaels'
voice and the magic of Monday night. Hadn't thought of it during
the first Sept. 11th when I worked in a smallish ugly building
in downtown Charlotte, NC and got caught up in the engulfing
fear of the business district's evacuation. Or during the first
anniversary, when I called the same building my home away from
home. But this year, with global angst ramping up and anti-American
sentiment on the rise, and with that Dallas tower beckoning like
a coffin in my nightmares at the other end of I-30, I found September
11th a tough pill to swallow. And that precursor, that day
of dread and remembrance and anger and sorrow, served only to
amplify the loss that consumed me the morning of the 12th as
I heard Bruce Kidder's voice on KHYI-FM intone " and that
was the late J.R. Cash, singing." I pulled over. Just
stopped, right there on the shoulder of the Tom Landry Freeway,
and let it wash over me. Johnny was gone. Hell, it was tough
when that same thought came during the summer for the one named
Paycheck. But this, man, this shit was real. I remember my
Baptist preacher daddy, the man who serves as my hero and my
antagonist, the man breathing brimstone from a pulpit and raging
against the secularization of Christianity, railing over the
years against the music that would suck the life from those of
the Faith. I remember hearing that Amy Grant and Michael W.
Smith would destroy our youth with their rock and roll. That
Stryper was the epitome of evil, a doppelganger somehow befouled
and muddled and insidiously leading my friends, my generation,
to the very edges of the Pit. But I also remember a stack of
old 45s in Daddy's study, and that a goodly number of those small
vinyl records carried the words Johnny Cash on their labels.
I loved those records then, pondered the madness and the method
of a man who could espouse Johnny and Marty Robbins but couldn't
understand why his son would turn up the stereo and let Bruce
Springsteen ask the questions. I may never understand, to be
honest. But I do know this. My Dad, a man who's built churches
from the ground up with his own hands, led hundreds if not thousands
to a personal understanding of the teachings of Christ, loved
Johnny Cash and his music and what he stood for. And I know
that I, a 30 something rebel with a deep and abiding love for
the whiskey and the women, have an enduring stake in the Cash
legacy as well. Maybe that was Johnny's secret, his mojo -
- he saw it all, did it all, ultimately understood it all, and
found a way to bridge the gaps. He did it for my Daddy and
me, gave us at least one damn thing to agree on. And as two
of our writers here at Rockzillaworld explain below, Johnny worked
similar magic for them as well. But you know the stories, because
he touched your life too.
Dave Pilot
Remembering Johnny Cash
I remember when I was a kid, probably in the fifth grade or
so, there was a community center where they gave out free popcorn
and you could go there and play a game of pool. It was really
just a place that would have made a good bar, but it was opened
up for the kids in the neighborhood to hang out in. They had
a jukebox in there and for a quarter you could play 5 songs.
I remember I'd put a quarter in that jukebox and almost every
song I'd choose would be a Johnny Cash song. I guess I was around
11 or 12 years old at the time and I thought Mr. Cash was the
coolest. He was a bit foreboding from the pictures I'd seen
of him frowning out at the camera, stern, dark and very tough.
I loved his aura of danger; you just didn't mess with the man
in black. He was one of my early heroes
I remember right about this same time going to the local theatre
and seeing a movie called The Gunfighter. The movie starred
Johnny Cash along side of Glen Campbell as two gunslingers back
in the Wild West. If I were to see this film today, I'm sure
I'd be less impressed by the acting abilities of it's major stars,
but back then in the hot summer of 1967, I was seeing my hero
Johnny Cash up there on the big screen, bigger than life, and
it wowed the hell out of me.
 I
remember one of the first vinyl record albums that I really wanted
to own was Johnny Cash at San Quentin with it's dark blue
photograph of Johnny's weather-worn face under the spotlights.
What really made the album a secret pleasure was the dangerous
of it: the fact the Johnny was playing live in front of a bunch
of murdering convicts! I talked my parents into buying it for
me, and I played that thing til the grooves wore out. I recall
listening to the prisoners roaring with laughter during my favorite
song "A Boy Named Sue" and I recall their thunderous
applause at the song's finish. Those cons loved Johnny! They
couldn't be half as bad as I'd originally envisioned them to
be.
I remember watching "The Johnny Cash Show" on television
when I was a kid. I clearly recall a small part of one episode
where there was a pretty young woman sitting on a stool in the
foreground while Mr. Cash was in the back of the stage approaching
her very slowly while strumming a guitar and singing some song
I can't recall the title of. Just as Johnny Cash stepped right
up next to this young woman on the stool, he finishes his song,
stares down into her eyes almost sternly, and then quickly tickles
her ribs while breaking into a fiendish smile. She loses it
and almost falls off of the stool giggling. At that moment, I
realized who Mr. Johnny Cash was. He was her big brother, teasing.
He was her husband, her father, and her older, crazy uncle.
At that moment, Johnny Cash was exemplifying his power over
other folks. It was a fine power though, a power that possessed
love, humor and strength of character. He was able to have that
woman on the stool go through a string of varying emotional states,
all in the time that it took him to approach her across that
stage. She went from admiration to appreciation to expectation
to nervousness to a second of surprise, and ultimately to embarrassed
laughter. He was like that to all of us I think.
Johnny Cash was everybody's big brother. He'd stand up for
you when nobody else would. Just listen to his song "The
Man In Black" where he explains his reasons for wearing
black, excerpted here:
Well, there's things that never will be right I know
And things need changin' everywhere you go
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You'll never see me wear a suit of white
Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow everyday
And tell the world that everything's okay
But, I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
'Til things are brighter, I'm the man in black
Johnny Cash had his share of setbacks, addictions and bad
choices, but he always managed to come back around. He may have
gone out of style for periods of time, but he always managed
to rejuvenate himself. True talent and the fact that he was
an American Icon saw to that. Sure, his vocal range may have
been limited, but it's the immediately recognizable quality of
that voice that spoke to our generations and will continue to
speak to our future generations. During the 1960's, Johnny was
friends with Bob Dylan, Billy Graham and Richard Nixon, all at
the same time. Johnny Cash will never go out of style.
His Sun Records recordings with Sam Phillips were amazing
works of songwriting that turned country music on its ear. His
many wonderful albums for Columbia Records continued this trend,
right up until the point when they unceremoniously cut him loose.
After all of the millions of albums that he sold for them, they
let Johnny Cash go because his music wasn't viable enough for
them any more. This led to many years of Johnny's struggling
to keep his interest in music alive. He went to another label
(Mercury) for a while, but the records just weren't selling like
before. Then Johnny signed with producer Rick Rubin who was better
known for recording such "other end of the spectrum"
artists as the rap band Public Enemy and the hard metal of Slayer.
Nashville got wind of this and figured ol' Johnny had finally
gone senile.
The recordings with Rick Rubin turned out to be another amazing
chapter of Johnny's career and after four stunning albums where
Cash covered such diverse song writers as Beck, Soundgarden and
Nine Inch Nails, a whole new generation of fans embraced the
man in black. The albums sold well, the awards started coming
in and Johnny Cash, nearing the end of his life had reinvented
himself again. So he took out a full-page ad in Billboard
Magazine that consisted of a photo of him flipping off the
entire Nashville establishment with a hearty "Fuck You!"
Go Johnny Cash.
About a year ago, I was flipping through an issue of Rolling
Stone Magazine (Ugh) and came across a full-page photographic
portrait of Johnny Cash that caught his advancing age in a startling,
yet beautiful way. I showed it to my wife, and her comments
made we wonder. She simply looked at the photo and with awe
said, "He looks like an old Indian." I truly believe
that Johnny Cash was a unique human being and he probably did
possess the wisdom of the old Indians. He wrote a lot of songs
about Indians and had always exhibited an abiding respect for
this land's first true sons. Like an old Indian, Johnny Cash
was a true son of this land.
Many people have died and come back and spoke of a beautiful
light at the end of a tunnel that they had witnessed while "crossing
over". Johnny Cash caught a glimpse of that light on the
other side after he was dead on the operating table for nearly
40 minutes when doctors stopped his heart during an open-heart
surgery operation several years ago. He's been often quoted
as saying that the light was beautiful and that when it had dimmed
at his approach and he had awoken back into this plain of existence,
that he'd felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment. He hadn't
wanted to come back to this world, he'd wanted to stay and go
into the beautiful light.
When his soul partner and wife June Carter Cash passed just four
months before his own death, Johnny Cash said that the only thing
that helped him through the terrible grief was his faith. I saw
the footage of him at his wife's funeral, and the weight upon
his shoulders had him bowed over in tearful grief. It choked
me up and I thought to myself at that time that he wouldn't be
with us for very much longer. When I heard about his passing,
it didn't affect me as hard as it could have because I'd kind
of expected it. He didn't need to hang around anymore. He knew
his work was done. Johnny Cash didn't die of complications due
to diabetes, no Johnny Cash died of heartbreak and a longing
to be with his dear wife again. He'd been blessed with a glimpse
of that wonderful light once before, and he knew what was in
store for him when he stepped off of this old world and crossed
over into the next. That light was waiting there for him once
again, except this time there was one very important difference.
This time someone very special to him was waiting there, and
this time, he wasn't coming back.
B.J. Weikert
Losing Our Edge
 Our radio woke us with a Johnny
Cash tune this morning. That was a great way to start the day--
until we heard the DJ refer to him "the late Johnny Cash."
Folks who've been around Rockzillaworld for a while
have heard me tell this story a hundred times, but I'll tell
it again. My Daddy was talking to me once about how important
music had been to him. He said,"I don't remember where I
was when I heard that Franklin Roosevelt was dead. I don't remember
what I was doing when Kennedy got shot. I DO remember exactly
where I was and what I was doing when they came and told me that
Hank Williams had died, though."
I think a lot of us will have a memory like that about this
morning. Johnny Cash is dead.
If you haven't been keeping up with Cash's work for the past
few years, you need to correct that error as soon as possible.
If you're an Americana artist, I'd be a little scared this morning
if I were you. Who's going to show you where the edge is now?
That's what Johnny Cash was doing at the end of his career--
showing us where the edge was located-- just how far the envelope
could be pushed. Screw Uncle Wilcotown or whoever the hell is
supposed to be the next big thing. If you want to know what the
newest thing in Americana music is, buy the newest Johnny Cash
album. That's where the edge is, brother.
Mike Johnson
Johnny Cash R.I.P.
I never met the Man in Black or even saw him on stage, but
we share a day of birth, Johnny and me, which, I am convinced,
creates a link. I grew up with Johnny's voice, awe-inspiring
and soothing at the same time. Whether "Ring Of Fire"
(still causing goosebumps all over the place) or "A Boy
Named Sue" (which has changed my gender perception forever
and thankfully so) was the first Cash song I ever heard, I cannot
remember. Irish friends of mine do remember they were brought
up with the idea that Johnny Cash is God. Probably, Johnny would
have thought that quite blasphemous, especially in his later
years. More moderately, being God's voice in some sort of way
would likely have been a more suitable ambition for him.
Unfortunately, I don't know very much about God and only
slightly more about Johnny Cash. Maybe I have always missed
God as much as I know I will miss Mr. Cash. At every birthday
I will be blessed to celebrate, I will blow out Johnny's candles
along with mine. It will take quite a hurricane to work up to
do that, but at least, as long as I can do that, I know I will
be alright. Right now, I'm listening to June singing "Will
You Miss Me When I'm Gone?" and the simple answer is: yes,
I will miss both of them. I wish we would have met, if only
for a single handshake.
Marianne Ebertowski
Walking (and Crossing)
the Line
I was 11 years old in the summer of '69 when I caught up with
the rest of the world and contracted a case of Beatlemania.
Growing up in a small Idaho town my exposure to music before
that was limited, mostly listening to my mother's radio station
(only marginally better than what they called "easy listening"
back then) and her small record collection. The records were
predominantly country, most LPs with the latest hits she'd seen
advertised on TV. I wore out her 45 with "I Walk the Line"
on one side, "Get Rhythm" on the other, and that distinctive
Sun label on both. Listening to those records I formed some
definite opinions. Roger Miller was fun (it was years before
I realized just how deep, sometimes almost subversive, his songs
could be). Jim Reeves sucked. And Johnny Cash was the coolest
singer in the world.
After catching the rock and roll fever from the Beatles I
turned my back on country music. Wouldn't admit listening to
anything but the occasional country crossover for the next twenty-five
years. With two exceptions. Roger Miller was okay and Johnny
Cash simply remained cool. Cash stayed relevant whether my changing
musical tastes were leaning towards Carole King, Harry Chapin,
Kiss or Aerosmith. Now that I've returned to the country music
fold Cash is the exemplar that all other singers are measured
against. They may be good, but they always come up short. I'm
gonna miss you John.
Al Kunz
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