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Posted on 03/02/2026 6:09:26 PM PST by nickcarraway
To honor the memory of the Man In Black, born on February 26, 1932, a collection of 20 things you never knew about Johnny Cash, one of the true titans of country music.
Johnny’s mother bought him a guitar for his tenth birthday
The day after the funeral of Johnny’s older brother Jack, the Cash family were back in the fields, picking cotton for ten hours
At 21, on a trip to Paris while in the Air Force, Johnny visited the Eiffel Tower and viewed the Mona Lisa
In September 1954, Elvis Presley performed at the opening of Katz Drug Store in Memphis. Johnny Cash was in the audience. Within a few months, he became Elvis’ labelmate at Sun Records
“Ring Of Fire” was first recorded by Anita Carter, sister of Johnny’s future wife June – and June wrote it with Merle Kilgore, who was the best man at their wedding
Johnny’s film acting debut, in 1961’s Five Minutes To Live, included a third movie appearance by seven-year-old Ronnie Howard. Later he played Opie Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show and Richie Cunningham in Happy Days before becoming a hugely successful film director
Shel Silverstein, who wrote Johnny’s smash hit “A Boy Named Sue,” later wrote a sequel, lightheartedly looking at the story from the parental point of view and titled “The Father Of A Boy Named Sue”
Johnny and June’s signature hit “Jackson” was officially written by Billy Edd Wheeler and German-American actress Gaby Wheeler. But it was actually co-penned by Billy Edd and the prolific Jerry Leiber, one half of the Leiber & Stoller team, who was married to Gaby at the time and used his wife’s name as a pseudonym
Cash’s second and final theatrical movie release as an actor, 1971’s A Gunfight, received $2 million of financing from the Jicarilla Apache tribe of New Mexico, to keep production in the US. The tribe are renowned for their basket-weaving and beadwork.
The clip of Cash saying, “You stay the hell away from me, you hear?” featured at 1’46” into the award-winning video for his version of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” comes from the aforementioned movie A Gunfight
A voracious reader, Cash consumed the works of James Joyce and Dylan Thomas, and told writer Philip Norman in 1971 that he was preparing to read Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples Vols 1-4
What did Johnny have in common with Donny Osmond, David Bowie, Wilson Pickett, the Righteous Brothers, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, B. Bumble and the Stingers, and Mott The Hoople? They, and dozens of other stars, were all namechecked in studio band Reunion’s 1974 US Top 10 hit “Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)”
On March 20, 1976, Johnny and June returned to his birthplace of Kingsland, Arkansas, then he performed a free concert in nearby Rison for a crowd estimated at 12,000. The population of Kingsland at the 2010 US census was 447
Cash was friendly with all the US presidents from Richard Nixon onwards, but especially with Jimmy Carter, who was distantly related to his wife June Carter Cash
In 1981, Johnny was nearly killed when an ostrich attacked him in the animal park he’d established behind the House of Cash offices. He broke a total of five ribs and cut his stomach open, was hospitalized, and became addicted to the painkillers he was prescribed
In the 80s, Cash found love letters written to June, during a short love affair, by Elvis Presley. He destroyed them
In an interview with Larry King, Cash revealed that his favorite country music artist was Dwight Yoakam
The first gold disc award received by Johnny Cash for a regular studio album arrived in April 2003, just five months before his death, for American IV: The Man Comes Around
“Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold This Body Down),” cut by Cash at the suggestion of producer Rick Rubin for their final album collaboration American VI: Ain’t No Grave, was written and first recorded by “Brother” Claude Ely. He was the first Pentecostal Holiness preacher to be signed to a major contract to record sacred music and songs
In 2015, the Ensworth School in Nashville became the first high school to mount a production of Ring Of Fire: The Johnny Cash Musical Show. Johnny’s granddaughter was a member of the cast
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Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
A local took me on a walk from the beach, through the brush to see the Johnny Cash house in Jamaica years ago. I always enjoyed his music.
The man was flawed - just like all of us.
But he shows the redeeming power of Christ.
iswydt!
...you’d better change your ways today,
or with us you will ride...
If Cash had sent me those love letters instead of burning them, I would be flying around the world trying to figure out how to spend my money.
I remember that Katz store. As a kid of maybe 5 or 6 years of age, we would occasionally visit that store on those rare times we traveled the 100 miles to Memphis. I was mesmerized by their little metal gates that would automatically swing open as you approached. I think that's part of what steered me into studying electrical engineering years later.
Cash also played John Brown in the 1980’s civil war mini series The Blue and the Gray.
We took a party boat sunset cruise from New Port Richey, Florida. They took us by a home they said Johnny owned. They claimed he and June spent many winters here and interacted often with the locals. Occasionally, he even sang n local bars.
AMEN!!
“At 21, on a trip to Paris while in the Air Force, Johnny visited the Eiffel Tower and viewed the Mona Lisa”
I used to be in the same line of work he did in the Air Force.
I know little of his faith, though that he backslid, found some repentance later, and hopefully died in thar faith the song honors.
Now come along with me in the footsteps of Jesus
And I'll show you why they do
Matthew Mark and Luke and John told about Jesus on that gospel highway
Matthew Mark and Luke and John told about Jesus on that gospel road
How his pillow was a stone where he laid his head
How the hungry five thousand on the hill were fed
How the people came and listened to him ev'rything he saidWalkin' down that gospel road
The desire of ages now had finally come
Born to walk upon that Gospel Highway
Born of a virgin down in Bethlehem
Born to walk upon that Gospel Road
And life would begin at the touch of his hand
The people would listen to him throughout the land
For never a man spoke like this man
Walkin' down that Gospel Road
copyright <a href="https://elyrics.net">http://elyrics.net</a>
There is a picture of me at around 6 years old sitting next to Cash at his once home in Casitas Springs, CA.
My dad fixed his car once.
I don’t know what happened to the picture.
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