Check out Cash's rendition (w/Bob Dylan, of all people) of Girl from the North Country (on Nashville Skyline) if you're so confident he can carry a tune.
And Rod Stewart? Gay.
You can understand American Idol singers plainly, and guess what? They all suck.
You should see what Cash did with NiN’s “Hurt”. F-ing amazing.
He can carry a tune, just not all tunes.
As for Rod Stewart - what does his being gay have to do with anything? As Steve Tyler once said, the number of gay people in the music industry is surprising.
What is the Johnny Cash song set around “moving down the line” and using imagry of a water pump? That thing was burned in my brain as brilliant for a month, and now I can’t even humm the tune.