February 26, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Johnny Cash is an American original, and this story is an insider’s look at the man whose music sprang from how he lived. Pastor Greg Laurie is here to tell the story from his recent book/documentary, Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, a unique take on the life story of
Johnny Cash, who was himself an American original. This story
is an insider's look at the man whose music sprung
(00:30):
from the way he lived. Our storyteller is none than
greg Glory. Laurie is the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship
in Orange County, California and Maui.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Gregor is here to tell the.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Story from his recent book, Johnny Cash, The Redemption of
an American Icon. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Going back to the earliest days of my childhood, I
had an awareness of Johnny Cash. One of the reasons
for that is our family is from Arkansas, not far
from where Johnny's family was raised, and my grandparents, who
I lived with for a number of years because of
my mother's crazy lifestyle. She'd been married and divorced seven
(01:16):
times and was having a lot of boyfriends in between
and was running around, and so she left me with
my grandparents, Charles and Stella McDaniel, who we called Daddy
Charles and Mama Stella. So I remember as a little
boy watching Johnny Cash's television show, and I remember hearing
my grandfather say to my grandmother when he'd be reading
(01:37):
the paper, well, Stella, your cousin's in trouble again. Because
Johnny had a lot of problems early in his life
after he had his initial success, he was arrested numerous times.
He never served time in prison. He never murdered anybody.
Sometimes people think that because of lyrics from his songs,
such as I shot a man in Reno just to
(01:59):
watch die. Johnny never shot anyone, but he had a
problem with amphetamines that he got addicted to when he
first started out his career on the road. But anyway,
I was always aware of Johnny Cash. So, as it
turns out, my grandmother's maiden name Estella Fowler Cash, and
so I'm distantly related to Johnny Cash. But there was
(02:20):
something always about Johnny that was different from any other musician.
His contemporaries would have been Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, many others,
but Johnny was Johnny. He was called the King of
country music, but in a way he was more like
the king of his own music, because his music transcended
(02:41):
all forms of music, from country to rock and roll.
I mean, in some ways he was a pioneer of
what they called rockabilly. When he was in the studio,
there was Sam Phillips who also discovered Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis,
and Carl Perkins, and they developed this sound that evolved
into rock and roll. Elvis ran with it, but Johnny
(03:02):
couldn't have continued with that boom chicken boom sound. He
would play his guitar, he'd put a card in the
frets of the guitar because at one point he didn't
have a drummer to provide percussion, so he would get
that sound that you hear on so many Johnny Cash records. Right,
So Johnny should have never become who he was. But
(03:25):
it was all a part of a plan, and in
my mind, it was a part of God's plan. He
was raised in abject poverty. His father, Ray was a cold,
distant man. He was a sharecropper, never really succeeded in life,
and he favored one son over the other. Johnny had
an older brother named Jack, and clearly Ray favored Jack
(03:48):
over Johnny. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself
in the story. But when Johnny's brother Jack was tragically
killed in an accident in the sawmill. Ray was quoted
to have said later, I think God took the wrong
son to Johnny. Really. All throughout his life, when Johnny
did find some success in music and then huge success,
(04:10):
even being invited to the White House, he would always
invite his father Ray. I think he was trying to
impress him well into his adult years. So that was
a very strange relationship between father and son. Well, Johnny's mother,
Carrie was a very nurturing, loving woman, and Johnny's father,
(04:32):
Ray was a very distant aloof uncommunicative father. So Johnny
and Jack were as thick as thieves, very very close brothers.
Johnny looked up to his brother, who, though still very young,
was almost like a proper father figure for him. He
(04:53):
gave Johnny guidance, encouragement, and Jack knew that he wanted
to be a preacher one day and Johnny he wanted
to be a singer. They often went fishing together and
done one particular day, Johnny was gonna go fishing, he
invited Jack to come and join him, but Jack said,
I gotta go work down with the sawmill to make
(05:13):
a few extra dollars for the family. That's because Jack
was such a responsible young man. And so Jack was
there working and tragically he was pulled into the saw.
Somehow amazingly he survived it, but he stumbled out into
the field and he was literally holding his vital organs
(05:33):
in so he was taken to the hospital. So meanwhile,
Johnny's out there fishing and his father shows up with
a minister and Jack's bloody shirt, and he says, get
in the truck, and he threw his fishing pole in
the back and they went down to the hospital and
there on that bed was Johnny's brother Jack, who was
(05:56):
very close to passing into eternity. So in my book
Look Johnny Cash, a Redemption of an American icon, I
described the scene as follows, and I'm reading from my book.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Jr.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
That would be Johnny took Jack's hand and brought his
cheek close to his brothers. Goodbye, Jack is all he
could get out. Jack looked at his father and asked,
will you meet me in heaven? Ray Cash did the
most unexpected thing. He fell on his knees and prayed,
asking Jesus Christ to be his Lord in savior. Then
(06:32):
Jack looked at Carrie. That would be Jack's mother. Why
is everybody crying over me? Mama, don't cry over me.
Don't you see the river? On one side of the river,
he said, was fire. On the other side was heaven.
I thought it was going toward the fire, but I'm
headed in the other direction now, Mama, can you hear
the angel singing? Jack squeezed her hand in tears of
(06:55):
happiness rolled down his cheeks. Mama, he said, listen to
the angels. I'm going there, Mama. A moment later, Jack said,
what a beautiful city and the angel singing? Oh, Mama,
I wish you could hear the angels singing.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Then he was gone, and you've been listening to Greglorie
share the story of Johnny Cash. The redemption of an
American icon continues here on Our American Stories. Plehbibe here
(07:33):
the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
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(07:56):
Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give and we
continue with our American Stories. We last left off hearing
how in nineteen forty four, Johnny Cash's older brother, Jack,
(08:18):
with whom he was very close, died at twelve years
of age in a tragic table saw accident, with Johnny
by his bedside. His final words were, will you meet
me in heaven. Let's return to Greg Glory.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And those words are inscribed on Jack Cash's tombstone. Will
you meet me in Heaven, our preacher to the very end.
This made a powerful impression on Johnny, who missed his
brother so deeply, and on through his life he continued
to think about his brother, and in fact, his brother
(08:54):
would appear to him in dreams, he said, and what's
in Justine? As his brother appeared to him over the years,
he was an older version of what his brother might
have looked like. And actually Johnny used as sort of
a point of reference throughout his life what would Jack
have done? What would Jack have thought? About?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
This?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So the influence of his brother impacted Johnny Cash for
the rest of his life. Johnny grew up picking cotton
out in the fields. It sounds like a story from
the Old West, and in many ways it was because
Johnny was just like any other poor young boy working
(09:37):
with this family, no real sense of what his future
would be. But one thing that Carrie loved to do
out on the common fields was seeing old hymns that
they would hear at church.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
It is what I was raised. It was a thing
that inspired me as a child growing up on a
cotton farm where work was druagery and it was so
hard that when I was in the fields all the time,
and usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above
the black dirt.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
After supper, they loved to sit around the radio and
listen to the Grand Ole Opry and the songs. And
Johnny the young boy began to dream that maybe one
day he could do that. And so they were out
in the fields one day and Johnny came in singing
the song, and Carrie turned and said, who just sang that? Well,
it was Johnny, but his voice dropped and it was
(10:29):
that more familiar Johnny Cash Timber, And she said, God
has given to you a gift, my son. So I
think it was at that point that Johnny's dreams really
caught fire where he thought that he could one day
maybe be on the Grand ol Opry. He could be
on the radio, he could have a hit song. But
before that would happen, he would serve a stint in
(10:51):
the Air Force. So during his stint in the Air Force,
Johnny found himself very adept at working as a Morse
Code operator. And I think Johnny was beginning to discover
his relationship with sound, with pitch, and later with music.
(11:14):
He was a Morse Code operator and actually he was
the one who intercepted the news, a top secret message
from the Russians that Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had died
from a stroke on March fifth, nineteen fifty three. And
this is an amazing thing because Johnny retained this skill
(11:34):
well into the later years of his life, because his son,
John Carter Cash said, the old man still had it.
When he came to retaining his skills, he proved it
by writing out the twenty third Psalm on Morse code
on a piece of paper. So this sense of understanding
of sounds was something that would help Johnny when he
began to write songs, and he was writing a lot
(11:57):
of letters to the love of his life at that
time Vivian and he also began to compose songs about
places he'd never been to before. But his imagination was
running wild, and really that skill set that would later
be fully realized was being developed as he was stationed
there over in Germany. So after Johnny got back from Germany,
(12:21):
he took various odd jobs, from selling appliances to other things,
none of which really interested him. He wanted to be
a musician. He knew of this success of Elvis Presley,
so he started calling Sun Studios wanting to talk to Sam.
He could never really get hold of him, and one
day he did communicate with him, and so Sam invited
him down and Sam actually said to him, or you're
(12:44):
the one who keeps calling, so you know, there's something
to be said for persistence. And when Sam heard Johnny,
he didn't really know what to make of him because
a lot of people were trying to sound like Elvis,
but Johnny didn't sound anything like Elvis. He was his
own guy. And you know, you really have to stop
and be amazed by this collection of talent at one
(13:07):
moment in time, and the ability of Sam Phillips to
pick that talent. I mean Jerry Lee Lewis, also known
as the Killer Carl Perkins, who wrote Blue Suede Shoes,
and of course Elvis and Johnny. He saw something that
others did not see. And I think what he saw
was an authenticity And this, to me is the key
(13:27):
to really making your mark. I think it's really the
very definition of what cool is.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
What is cool?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
By the way, Johnny was called the godfather of cool.
Why is it then when his musical career was resurrected
later by producer Rick Rubin that a whole new generation
Generation X thought he was the coolest thing to ever
come along. Answer, Because Johnny was Johnny. Johnny was authentic.
Johnny was an American original. Being cool is not dressing
(13:59):
in the latest fads or the latest clothing or using
the latest phrases. Being cool, of my definition, is being
an authentic version of yourself, being real. And I think
people can see that, and I think people could hear
it in the songs of Johnny. But it's not just
the way he's singing, it's the way he spoke, you know,
(14:20):
the timbre of his voice. He was described as the
voice of America. I like Chris Christopherson's definition of Johnny Cash.
He said he was like Abraham Lincoln with a wild side,
you know, So that was Johnny. No one sounded like Johnny,
No one sang like Johnny. Of course, he had his
own dress code, which ultimately became black, and so he
(14:42):
was known as the man in Black. So how Johnny
came to write the song cr Cry is pretty interesting.
So he was listening to the radio and he heard
dj Eddie Hill glibly in tone We've got good songs,
love songs, sweet songs, happy songs, and sad song that'll
make you cry, Cry Cry, And hearing those words caused
(15:04):
Johnny to pick up his pencil and start writing down
the lyrics to what would become a hit song, Cry
Cry Cry. The finished product clocked in at two minutes
in twenty nine seconds. So Johnny now had a hit
on his hands, and he had radio airplane happening. And
now he's out on the road and he's touring. So
while Johnny was out on one of his first tours
(15:26):
that happened to be with Elvis Presley, he met a
man named Sonny James, and Sonny was an outspoken Christian,
and Johnny, of course was a Christian as well, and
now he's having his first success and he's wondering, how
do you handle this? How do you live a Christian
life out here on the road. And I love the
advice that Sonny gave to Johnny. He said, Johnny, the
(15:48):
way I do this is by being the way that
I am. I'm not just an entertainer who has become
a Christian. I'm a Christian who chose to be an entertainer,
But I'm first a Christian. Who you are and what
you are in life sings louder than any song. And
then Sonny told Johnny, and don't forget to pray. And
(16:08):
you know, I think Johnny did follow that advice. He
did have lapsis, He did things he should have never done.
He trashed hotel rooms like a proper rock star. He
got drunk, he got banned from certain stages for his
crazy antics. But Johnny always turned to the Lord. And
later when he was really having his greatest success with
(16:29):
his television show, I think Johnny really lived out this
advice of Sonny James speaking openly about his faith without embarrassment.
In fact, that became a source of great tension with
him in the network, and some believe that's the reason
they ultimately canceled his television show that was very successful.
But Johnny was always wanting to express his faith openly
(16:54):
and publicly, and I think deep down in his heart
he still wanted to be a gospel singer, just like
he was when he originally went to see Sam Phillips
over at Sun Studios.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Gospel music is such so ingrained into my bones. You know,
I can't do a concert without singing a gospel song.
I have a calling, It's called to perform and sing,
and gospel gospel song is a ministry in a way.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And you've been listening to Greg Glory tell the story
of Johnny Cash's faith life. Johnny Cash The Redemption of
an American Icon is the book, by the way, It's
also a terrific documentary. I'm not an entertainer who is
a Christian. He was advised by someone he look up to.
I'm a Christian who is an entertainer. And what a
(17:41):
difference that will make in Cash's musical life and his
spiritual life as well. When we come back more with
Greg Glory and Johnny Cash The Redemption of an American Icon.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Here on our American stories.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And we returned to our American stories and to Greg
Glory telling the story of Johnny Cash and his faith journey.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
So now Johnny's out on the road. He's touring endlessly
and the road is wearing him down. He's exhausted. So
one night he shared a bill with a guy known
as the Hillbilly heartthrob Farren Young, who said, I've got
something that will fix you right up. From a pocket,
he pulled out a handful of cream colored pills and
(18:42):
all went out to Cash and he said, take this.
He won't be tired for long. You'll get to the
night with no problem whatsoever. Johnny grabbed the pill, he
swallowed it, and he gave quite a show. And that
was the beginning of Johnny's addiction to amphetamines. Now, in fairness,
a lot of people touring at this time, we're taking
(19:02):
these amphetamines, And there were commercials on television advocating how
these can help you give you more pep. And I'm
not justifying the addiction that Johnny developed, but he was
not the only one, and they actually were quite mainstream.
But this became a problem that he struggled with on
through his life, and these amphetamines certainly took a toll
(19:25):
on him in many ways physically, and I would also
add spiritually.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Well.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Johnny loved Vivian. He wrote all these love letters, so
many to her over the years, and then finally they
were married and they had children together. But Johnny's career
was exploding and Vivian would not see him for long
stretches of time. And then she went to one of
his shows and she saw the girls. She saw the
(19:53):
girls and their interest in Elvis and in Johnny, and
it began to cause her to be very concerned. All
culminated when Johnny actually played at the Hollywood Bowl and
she was there with their children, their daughters, and Johnny
got into a car with June Carter Cash excuse me,
June Carter at that time now cash, and he drove
(20:14):
away instead of Johnny driving away with Vivian, and she
knew that trouble was afoot. And of course, Johnny had
fallen in love with June Carter and decided he wanted
to marry her and announced it to her, and so
this ultimately resulted in the complete dissolution of his first
(20:36):
marriage to Vivian. Something he deeply regretted. It was wrong.
Johnny was making wrong decisions. Johnny was doing sinful things,
and he knew it. But looking at a bigger picture,
one can look back on that and say, though it
is tragic that he was not the best husband to
Vivian and should have held that marriage together because of
(20:59):
his severe addiction to drugs, June Carter would eventually save
his very life, because I think if it wasn't for June,
who was out there with him, that Johnny probably would
have died of a drug overdose. He could have followed
in the footsteps of his friend Elvis Presley, but June
was someone that helped him through this very hard time.
(21:24):
Here's a quote from Johnny Cash. You know, I used
to sing with you there when they crucified my Lord
while I was stoned on amphetamines. I used to sing
all those gospel songs, but I never really felt them,
And maybe I was a little ashamed of myself at
the time because of the hypocrisy of it all. There
I was singing the praises of the Lord and singing
(21:46):
about the beauty and the piece you can find in him,
and I was stoned so on one occasion, Johnny borrowed
June Carter's Cadillac and herecked it, breaking his nose. He
lost his front teeth as well as he had head
on collision with utility poll. He claimed a wet roadway
was the cause of the accident, but he was taken
(22:08):
to Vanderbilt Hospital, where surprisingly he refused a shot of
morphine for the pain that had his noseet. And another
surprise was that of the policeman heading up the investigation
of the crash was none other than of Officer rip Nis,
June Carter's husband. So no charges were filed and the
(22:29):
incident didn't make the paper. But Officer Nix's wife undoubtedly
got an airfull at home. So I would say at
this point in his life, Johnny's trying to live in
two worlds. You know. His sister Joanne put it this way.
Johnny was like two people. She said, Johnny was one
person and Cash was the other. And she said Cash
(22:51):
cost all the trouble, and he was always struggling with
different things throughout his life and reaping the consequences of it.
And I think Johnny had too much of the world
to be happy in his relationship with God. And too
much of a relationship with God to be happy in
the world. He was in sort of this no man's land,
(23:12):
trying to live in two places at the same time,
and it was causing a lot of internal and external
conflict and problems in his life.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Well, I guess Christoberson pretty well summed it up. And
the song he wrote about me, He's a walking contradiction,
partly truth and partly fiction.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
So Johnny got to a point where, with a collapse
of his marriage to his first wife, Vivian, his addiction
to drugs, his life spiraling out of control, he effectively
decided to take his life. So he made his way
to a cave about thirty miles from Chattanooga called Nika
Jack Cave. He had actually been there before as a
(23:56):
young man looking for arrowheads and other things, but now
he just thought he would keep walking as far in
as he possibly could walk and never return again. And
that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
I remember sitting in the mouth of that cave crying
and then taking a little two sail flash light and
started walking into that cave.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I decided I'd walk as far as I could
go and then lay down.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
And I guess I probably went a mile through one
of the caverns and my flashlight completely burned out, and
it was black, black, dark, so dark.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You could feel it, and said my goodbye prayers.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
I must have dozed off because I felt a presence
within me come from outside of me to make me
sit up. This is awfully corny, but the nold Indian
trick is to wet your fingers, stick it up see
which way the wind blows. I tried everything to see
and then I finally did that, and I felt cool
(24:56):
air on one side of my finger.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I knew that I kept following it. There's you know, crawling.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Sometimes I'd fallow twenty or thirty feet into a pit,
but A claw my way back up, and.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Just as I was about to give up.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
I saw a little flick of light way off in
the distance, and I finally made it there, and I
collapsed in the mouth of the cave. When I woke,
June was there washing my face, and she said, you're
almost dead, arn't you?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
And I said you have to. I want to live.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So after this, another event happened in Lafayette, Georgia, on
November two, nineteen sixty seven. He was visiting a friend
there and went up by himself at evening and got lost,
and in an effort he get directions back to his
friend's house, he knocked on the door of an elderly
woman who lived alone, and she called the police on him.
Deputy Bob jeff responded and Patty Cash down discovered prescription
(25:52):
drugs on him, which were legal, and he took Cash
to jail and he spent the night in his south.
The next morning, the sheriff woke up Johnny and brought
him into his office. So Johnny's sick, he's despondent. He's
expecting this lawman to come down on him hard, but
instead Jones opens up a George takes out the money
and the pills he had taken off Cash the night before,
(26:14):
held them out and said, I'm going to give you
your money and you're dope back because you know better
than most people that God gave you free will to
do whatever you want with your life. Kash could throw
the pills away or go ahead and take them and
kill himself, and Sheriff Jones added, whichever one you want
to do, mister Cash will be all right with me.
Johnny sinking was going on here and As they were talking,
(26:38):
Johnny realized that this man really cared about him. In fact,
he told him they were huge Johnny Cash fans for
over a decade and at every record he had made,
the sheriff said, we love you. We've always loved you.
We've watched you on television, We've listened to you on
the radio, We've got your album of hymns. You were
probably the biggest fan you've ever had. This be the
(27:00):
deep impression on Johnny.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And you're listening to Greg Glory tell the story of
Johnny Cash and his faith walk, and it is a
difficult walk for Cash. The book Johnny Cash, The Redemption
of an American Icon. It's also a documentary. Get both
wherever you get your books or documentaries. We return with
more after these messages here on our American Stories, and
(27:37):
we continue with our American stories and the story of
Johnny Cash and his faith life. Let's pick up where
we last left off with Greg Glory.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So, Johnny Cash had this unique relationship with prisoners, and
when he wanted to make a record in a prison,
the record executives of his company thought that was the
worst idea imaginable, but it ended up being a brilliant
career choice, and Johnny debuted his song A Boy Named
(28:09):
Sue that was recorded live. Johnny had a connection to prisoners.
Though he never spent time in prison, he did spend
time in jail. He knew what it was like to fail.
He knew what it was like to hit rock bottom.
And I think the prisoners could sense that about him.
And when he was asked why he did these shows
in prisons, he said, we're here because the inmate population
(28:33):
asked us to come. We're here because we love the applause.
You give us some prison talk about a captive audience.
And most importantly, he said, I'm here because I'm a Christian.
So after Johnny's television show was canceled, he decided to
take all of that fame and all of that influence
and do something he'd been wanting to do for a
(28:54):
long time. That is, make a film about Jesus Christ.
It was called The Gospel. Wrote Now, I would not
describe this as a cinematic masterpiece, but what I would
say is his heart was in the right place. He
wanted to do something that would move people toward a
relationship with God. So he took his family and his
(29:17):
entourage over to Israel, and the man that ended up
directing the film, who was not a believer at all,
in fact, was an atheist, ended up ironically playing the
role of Jesus. We might describe him as a very
Swedish Jesus because he was very blonde, a reddish hair,
and he literally Johnny was literally just hiring people that
(29:38):
he met to be extras in the film, and his
wife June, played the role of Mary Magdalene. And the film,
in my opinion, was not a great film, but Billy Graham,
who was a close friend of Johnny, took a great
interest in it and actually gave it a second life,
and it was seen by a lot of people, and
it even resulted in people coming to faith. So this
(30:01):
is not kind of the beginning of the musical decline
of Johnny Cash. He was eventually fired by his record
label Columbia, and actually he had made them a lot
of money, and it was a really surprising turn of events.
But Johnny went on to pursue the things that mattered
to him. He continued to sing, but he also went
(30:22):
out and became an ordained minister. Very few people know
that about him, but he still had to make money.
He still had to make a living, so he ended
up having to audition to be in another record label.
Here he's sitting before a bunch of young record executives
or deciding if they want to record this musical legend,
(30:43):
and they told him basically, don't call us, we'll call you.
So Johnny's venues have become quite small at this point,
and one night he was playing at a dinner club
in Anaheim, California, and a thirty year old, long haired,
(31:06):
bearded man named Rick Rubin came to see him. Now,
Rick had been very successful with this def Jam record
label and had produced other rock acts and rap acts,
and he wanted to work with an older artist, and
so he came to hear Johnny. And after Johnny had performed,
someone came up to him and said, Hey, there's this
(31:28):
guy named Rick Rubin that wants to meet you. Well,
Johnny had never heard of Rick Rubin before, and in
walks rick and Rick introduces himself and says that he
wants to record Johnny, and Johnny asks, what are you
going to do for me that no one else has
been able to do for me before?
Speaker 4 (31:44):
I didn't believe it at first. I said, how, how
are you going to be in a different than everybody else?
And he said, because we're going to get into the
music and find out what it's the best thing Johnny
Cash can do and the most natural thing, and that's
what we're going for.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Wants to get Johnny back to his roots again. And
unbeknownst to Johnny, as Rick was recording these songs, he
already was mapping out in his mind what would become
the first of many records that Johnny would do toward
the end of his career called American Recordings, and there
is some production on them. It's sparse, but very effective,
(32:23):
and Rick reintroduced Johnny to a whole new audience of
people who had never heard of him before, specifically a
youth audience. Country music really didn't have a lot to
do with Johnny at this point, but Johnny was rediscovered
by Generation X and actually ended up winning an MTV
(32:44):
Award for his amazing video based on the Trent Reznor
song called Hurt and still to this day is something
that really moves you when you watch it. So Johnny
was having a big career comeback at this point.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
A lot of times, I feel like I got the
best of both worlds.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
When I look out a nurse, half of audience full
of young people, and half of fans my age, you know, yeah,
I feel like I got to sec a third chance
here to maybe do it right.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
On the final album they did together, Johnny's health was failing.
His wife June had already died, and he was in
deep mourning, and he just felt the best thing he
could do was go back into the studio and express
his sorrow.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
If I quit, I would just live in front of
the television and get fat and die. And you know,
I just told him, pray, I can die with my
boots on him.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
So Johnny and Rick Rubin became very good friends. And
Rick was not a believer in Jesus Christ. In fact,
I believe he was a Buddhist. But Reuben said Cash
was the most spiritually committed person he'd ever met.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
He's probably the most committed spiritual person I've ever met.
He really lived his life according to his connection with God, really,
and he had such an honest and pure way about
it that I remember we had a dinner party at
my house one night with Johnny and June and some
(34:18):
musicians and some film directors and before dinner, Johnny had
everyone hold hands and he said a prior and he
read from the Bible. And I know some of the
people at the table had never experienced that before, and
some of the people at the table were even atheists.
But his belief in what he believed was so strong
that what you believed didn't matter so much because you
(34:39):
were in the presence of someone who really believed, and
that felt good, and that made you believe really in
him more than anything else. It was really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So I wrote this book, Johnny Casher, Redemption of an
American Icon, and I was approached by the Kingdom Story
Company that wanted to do a documentary film on the
line life of Johnny Cash based on my book. So
we agreed to this, and now the film is going
to be seen in theaters around the country on December five, six,
(35:11):
and seven as a special Fathom event. It's a beautifully
done film and we had full buy in in cooperation
from the Cash estate. But ultimately it shows that no
matter how badly you've messed up in life, that God
can make a message out of a mess. He can
bring good despite the bad, and the Bible says that
(35:34):
God can bring beauty out of ashes. He did an
interview towards the end of his life with MTV's Kurt Loader,
and he talked about his life, his career, his faith,
and his imminent death. And Johnny said to Kurt, I
expect my life to end pretty soon.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
Oh, I expect my life to end pretty soon.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You know.
Speaker 7 (35:55):
I'm seventy one years old, and I have great faith.
Though I have unshakable faith. I've never been angry with God.
I've never turned my back on God, so to speak.
I never thought that God wasn't there. See, he's my
counselor he's my wisdom. All the good things of my
life come from him.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Where do you think we go afterwards? Where do we go?
When do we die? You mean?
Speaker 7 (36:22):
Oh, well, we all hope to go to heaven.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And a terrific job on the production and the storytelling
and editing by our own Greg Hangler, and a special
thanks to Greg Glory his book Johnny Cash The Redemption
of an American Icon and the film the documentary version,
and what a story we heard. And you know, he
did have a unique relationship with prisoners, as we learned
(36:51):
earlier in the storytelling. And I think Bono said it
best about Cash. He said, Johnny doesn't sing to the damned,
he sings with a damned and Bono is himself a
committed Christian who writes a lot about the intersection of
faith and life and doubt and in the end, music
(37:13):
and fame. The story of Hash being fired from his
label is heartbreaking, having to audition in front of young
people who see no future or talent. And then in
comes Rick Rubin into a club in California, a small venue,
and he sees something in Cash and sees something in
himself that he can bring to the table, and that
(37:35):
is getting rid of all that production, getting rid of
all the fancy boards, and having Cash connect to his
guitar and to the song and capture that authenticity as
no one can do like Rick Rubin, one of the
great producers who doesn't produce. In the end, though country
music wanted nothing to do with Cash at this stage
(37:56):
in his career, he rises again to fame with an
entirely new generation of audience. The story of Johnny Cash
his faith walk, as told by Greg Glory here on
our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next, a unique take on the life story of
Johnny Cash, who was himself an American original. This story
is an insider's look at the man whose music sprung
(00:30):
from the way he lived. Our storyteller is none than
greg Glory. Laurie is the pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship
in Orange County, California and Maui.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Gregor is here to tell the.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Story from his recent book, Johnny Cash, The Redemption of
an American Icon. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Going back to the earliest days of my childhood, I
had an awareness of Johnny Cash. One of the reasons
for that is our family is from Arkansas, not far
from where Johnny's family was raised, and my grandparents, who
I lived with for a number of years because of
my mother's crazy lifestyle. She'd been married and divorced seven
(01:16):
times and was having a lot of boyfriends in between
and was running around, and so she left me with
my grandparents, Charles and Stella McDaniel, who we called Daddy
Charles and Mama Stella. So I remember as a little
boy watching Johnny Cash's television show, and I remember hearing
my grandfather say to my grandmother when he'd be reading
(01:37):
the paper, well, Stella, your cousin's in trouble again. Because
Johnny had a lot of problems early in his life
after he had his initial success, he was arrested numerous times.
He never served time in prison. He never murdered anybody.
Sometimes people think that because of lyrics from his songs,
such as I shot a man in Reno just to
(01:59):
watch die. Johnny never shot anyone, but he had a
problem with amphetamines that he got addicted to when he
first started out his career on the road. But anyway,
I was always aware of Johnny Cash. So, as it
turns out, my grandmother's maiden name Estella Fowler Cash, and
so I'm distantly related to Johnny Cash. But there was
(02:20):
something always about Johnny that was different from any other musician.
His contemporaries would have been Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, many others,
but Johnny was Johnny. He was called the King of
country music, but in a way he was more like
the king of his own music, because his music transcended
(02:41):
all forms of music, from country to rock and roll.
I mean, in some ways he was a pioneer of
what they called rockabilly. When he was in the studio,
there was Sam Phillips who also discovered Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis,
and Carl Perkins, and they developed this sound that evolved
into rock and roll. Elvis ran with it, but Johnny
(03:02):
couldn't have continued with that boom chicken boom sound. He
would play his guitar, he'd put a card in the
frets of the guitar because at one point he didn't
have a drummer to provide percussion, so he would get
that sound that you hear on so many Johnny Cash records. Right,
So Johnny should have never become who he was. But
(03:25):
it was all a part of a plan, and in
my mind, it was a part of God's plan. He
was raised in abject poverty. His father, Ray was a cold,
distant man. He was a sharecropper, never really succeeded in life,
and he favored one son over the other. Johnny had
an older brother named Jack, and clearly Ray favored Jack
(03:48):
over Johnny. And I'm getting a little ahead of myself
in the story. But when Johnny's brother Jack was tragically
killed in an accident in the sawmill. Ray was quoted
to have said later, I think God took the wrong
son to Johnny. Really. All throughout his life, when Johnny
did find some success in music and then huge success,
(04:10):
even being invited to the White House, he would always
invite his father Ray. I think he was trying to
impress him well into his adult years. So that was
a very strange relationship between father and son. Well, Johnny's mother,
Carrie was a very nurturing, loving woman, and Johnny's father,
(04:32):
Ray was a very distant aloof uncommunicative father. So Johnny
and Jack were as thick as thieves, very very close brothers.
Johnny looked up to his brother, who, though still very young,
was almost like a proper father figure for him. He
(04:53):
gave Johnny guidance, encouragement, and Jack knew that he wanted
to be a preacher one day and Johnny he wanted
to be a singer. They often went fishing together and
done one particular day, Johnny was gonna go fishing, he
invited Jack to come and join him, but Jack said,
I gotta go work down with the sawmill to make
(05:13):
a few extra dollars for the family. That's because Jack
was such a responsible young man. And so Jack was
there working and tragically he was pulled into the saw.
Somehow amazingly he survived it, but he stumbled out into
the field and he was literally holding his vital organs
(05:33):
in so he was taken to the hospital. So meanwhile,
Johnny's out there fishing and his father shows up with
a minister and Jack's bloody shirt, and he says, get
in the truck, and he threw his fishing pole in
the back and they went down to the hospital and
there on that bed was Johnny's brother Jack, who was
(05:56):
very close to passing into eternity. So in my book
Look Johnny Cash, a Redemption of an American icon, I
described the scene as follows, and I'm reading from my book.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Jr.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
That would be Johnny took Jack's hand and brought his
cheek close to his brothers. Goodbye, Jack is all he
could get out. Jack looked at his father and asked,
will you meet me in heaven? Ray Cash did the
most unexpected thing. He fell on his knees and prayed,
asking Jesus Christ to be his Lord in savior. Then
(06:32):
Jack looked at Carrie. That would be Jack's mother. Why
is everybody crying over me? Mama, don't cry over me.
Don't you see the river? On one side of the river,
he said, was fire. On the other side was heaven.
I thought it was going toward the fire, but I'm
headed in the other direction now, Mama, can you hear
the angel singing? Jack squeezed her hand in tears of
(06:55):
happiness rolled down his cheeks. Mama, he said, listen to
the angels. I'm going there, Mama. A moment later, Jack said,
what a beautiful city and the angel singing? Oh, Mama,
I wish you could hear the angels singing.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Then he was gone, and you've been listening to Greglorie
share the story of Johnny Cash. The redemption of an
American icon continues here on Our American Stories. Plehbibe here
(07:33):
the host of our American Stories. Every day on this show,
we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories
from our big cities and small towns. But we truly
can't do the show without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love what you hear, go to Olamericanstories dot com
and click the donate button, give a little, give a lot.
(07:56):
Go to Alamerican Stories dot com and give and we
continue with our American Stories. We last left off hearing
how in nineteen forty four, Johnny Cash's older brother, Jack,
(08:18):
with whom he was very close, died at twelve years
of age in a tragic table saw accident, with Johnny
by his bedside. His final words were, will you meet
me in heaven. Let's return to Greg Glory.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
And those words are inscribed on Jack Cash's tombstone. Will
you meet me in Heaven, our preacher to the very end.
This made a powerful impression on Johnny, who missed his
brother so deeply, and on through his life he continued
to think about his brother, and in fact, his brother
(08:54):
would appear to him in dreams, he said, and what's
in Justine? As his brother appeared to him over the years,
he was an older version of what his brother might
have looked like. And actually Johnny used as sort of
a point of reference throughout his life what would Jack
have done? What would Jack have thought? About?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
This?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
So the influence of his brother impacted Johnny Cash for
the rest of his life. Johnny grew up picking cotton
out in the fields. It sounds like a story from
the Old West, and in many ways it was because
Johnny was just like any other poor young boy working
(09:37):
with this family, no real sense of what his future
would be. But one thing that Carrie loved to do
out on the common fields was seeing old hymns that
they would hear at church.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
It is what I was raised. It was a thing
that inspired me as a child growing up on a
cotton farm where work was druagery and it was so
hard that when I was in the fields all the time,
and usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above
the black dirt.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
After supper, they loved to sit around the radio and
listen to the Grand Ole Opry and the songs. And
Johnny the young boy began to dream that maybe one
day he could do that. And so they were out
in the fields one day and Johnny came in singing
the song, and Carrie turned and said, who just sang that? Well,
it was Johnny, but his voice dropped and it was
(10:29):
that more familiar Johnny Cash Timber, And she said, God
has given to you a gift, my son. So I
think it was at that point that Johnny's dreams really
caught fire where he thought that he could one day
maybe be on the Grand ol Opry. He could be
on the radio, he could have a hit song. But
before that would happen, he would serve a stint in
(10:51):
the Air Force. So during his stint in the Air Force,
Johnny found himself very adept at working as a Morse
Code operator. And I think Johnny was beginning to discover
his relationship with sound, with pitch, and later with music.
(11:14):
He was a Morse Code operator and actually he was
the one who intercepted the news, a top secret message
from the Russians that Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin had died
from a stroke on March fifth, nineteen fifty three. And
this is an amazing thing because Johnny retained this skill
(11:34):
well into the later years of his life, because his son,
John Carter Cash said, the old man still had it.
When he came to retaining his skills, he proved it
by writing out the twenty third Psalm on Morse code
on a piece of paper. So this sense of understanding
of sounds was something that would help Johnny when he
began to write songs, and he was writing a lot
(11:57):
of letters to the love of his life at that
time Vivian and he also began to compose songs about
places he'd never been to before. But his imagination was
running wild, and really that skill set that would later
be fully realized was being developed as he was stationed
there over in Germany. So after Johnny got back from Germany,
(12:21):
he took various odd jobs, from selling appliances to other things,
none of which really interested him. He wanted to be
a musician. He knew of this success of Elvis Presley,
so he started calling Sun Studios wanting to talk to Sam.
He could never really get hold of him, and one
day he did communicate with him, and so Sam invited
him down and Sam actually said to him, or you're
(12:44):
the one who keeps calling, so you know, there's something
to be said for persistence. And when Sam heard Johnny,
he didn't really know what to make of him because
a lot of people were trying to sound like Elvis,
but Johnny didn't sound anything like Elvis. He was his
own guy. And you know, you really have to stop
and be amazed by this collection of talent at one
(13:07):
moment in time, and the ability of Sam Phillips to
pick that talent. I mean Jerry Lee Lewis, also known
as the Killer Carl Perkins, who wrote Blue Suede Shoes,
and of course Elvis and Johnny. He saw something that
others did not see. And I think what he saw
was an authenticity And this, to me is the key
(13:27):
to really making your mark. I think it's really the
very definition of what cool is.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
What is cool?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
By the way, Johnny was called the godfather of cool.
Why is it then when his musical career was resurrected
later by producer Rick Rubin that a whole new generation
Generation X thought he was the coolest thing to ever
come along. Answer, Because Johnny was Johnny. Johnny was authentic.
Johnny was an American original. Being cool is not dressing
(13:59):
in the latest fads or the latest clothing or using
the latest phrases. Being cool, of my definition, is being
an authentic version of yourself, being real. And I think
people can see that, and I think people could hear
it in the songs of Johnny. But it's not just
the way he's singing, it's the way he spoke, you know,
(14:20):
the timbre of his voice. He was described as the
voice of America. I like Chris Christopherson's definition of Johnny Cash.
He said he was like Abraham Lincoln with a wild side,
you know, So that was Johnny. No one sounded like Johnny,
No one sang like Johnny. Of course, he had his
own dress code, which ultimately became black, and so he
(14:42):
was known as the man in Black. So how Johnny
came to write the song cr Cry is pretty interesting.
So he was listening to the radio and he heard
dj Eddie Hill glibly in tone We've got good songs,
love songs, sweet songs, happy songs, and sad song that'll
make you cry, Cry Cry, And hearing those words caused
(15:04):
Johnny to pick up his pencil and start writing down
the lyrics to what would become a hit song, Cry
Cry Cry. The finished product clocked in at two minutes
in twenty nine seconds. So Johnny now had a hit
on his hands, and he had radio airplane happening. And
now he's out on the road and he's touring. So
while Johnny was out on one of his first tours
(15:26):
that happened to be with Elvis Presley, he met a
man named Sonny James, and Sonny was an outspoken Christian,
and Johnny, of course was a Christian as well, and
now he's having his first success and he's wondering, how
do you handle this? How do you live a Christian
life out here on the road. And I love the
advice that Sonny gave to Johnny. He said, Johnny, the
(15:48):
way I do this is by being the way that
I am. I'm not just an entertainer who has become
a Christian. I'm a Christian who chose to be an entertainer,
But I'm first a Christian. Who you are and what
you are in life sings louder than any song. And
then Sonny told Johnny, and don't forget to pray. And
(16:08):
you know, I think Johnny did follow that advice. He
did have lapsis, He did things he should have never done.
He trashed hotel rooms like a proper rock star. He
got drunk, he got banned from certain stages for his
crazy antics. But Johnny always turned to the Lord. And
later when he was really having his greatest success with
(16:29):
his television show, I think Johnny really lived out this
advice of Sonny James speaking openly about his faith without embarrassment.
In fact, that became a source of great tension with
him in the network, and some believe that's the reason
they ultimately canceled his television show that was very successful.
But Johnny was always wanting to express his faith openly
(16:54):
and publicly, and I think deep down in his heart
he still wanted to be a gospel singer, just like
he was when he originally went to see Sam Phillips
over at Sun Studios.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
Gospel music is such so ingrained into my bones. You know,
I can't do a concert without singing a gospel song.
I have a calling, It's called to perform and sing,
and gospel gospel song is a ministry in a way.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And you've been listening to Greg Glory tell the story
of Johnny Cash's faith life. Johnny Cash The Redemption of
an American Icon is the book, by the way, It's
also a terrific documentary. I'm not an entertainer who is
a Christian. He was advised by someone he look up to.
I'm a Christian who is an entertainer. And what a
(17:41):
difference that will make in Cash's musical life and his
spiritual life as well. When we come back more with
Greg Glory and Johnny Cash The Redemption of an American Icon.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Here on our American stories.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
And we returned to our American stories and to Greg
Glory telling the story of Johnny Cash and his faith journey.
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
So now Johnny's out on the road. He's touring endlessly
and the road is wearing him down. He's exhausted. So
one night he shared a bill with a guy known
as the Hillbilly heartthrob Farren Young, who said, I've got
something that will fix you right up. From a pocket,
he pulled out a handful of cream colored pills and
(18:42):
all went out to Cash and he said, take this.
He won't be tired for long. You'll get to the
night with no problem whatsoever. Johnny grabbed the pill, he
swallowed it, and he gave quite a show. And that
was the beginning of Johnny's addiction to amphetamines. Now, in fairness,
a lot of people touring at this time, we're taking
(19:02):
these amphetamines, And there were commercials on television advocating how
these can help you give you more pep. And I'm
not justifying the addiction that Johnny developed, but he was
not the only one, and they actually were quite mainstream.
But this became a problem that he struggled with on
through his life, and these amphetamines certainly took a toll
(19:25):
on him in many ways physically, and I would also
add spiritually.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
Well.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Johnny loved Vivian. He wrote all these love letters, so
many to her over the years, and then finally they
were married and they had children together. But Johnny's career
was exploding and Vivian would not see him for long
stretches of time. And then she went to one of
his shows and she saw the girls. She saw the
(19:53):
girls and their interest in Elvis and in Johnny, and
it began to cause her to be very concerned. All
culminated when Johnny actually played at the Hollywood Bowl and
she was there with their children, their daughters, and Johnny
got into a car with June Carter Cash excuse me,
June Carter at that time now cash, and he drove
(20:14):
away instead of Johnny driving away with Vivian, and she
knew that trouble was afoot. And of course, Johnny had
fallen in love with June Carter and decided he wanted
to marry her and announced it to her, and so
this ultimately resulted in the complete dissolution of his first
(20:36):
marriage to Vivian. Something he deeply regretted. It was wrong.
Johnny was making wrong decisions. Johnny was doing sinful things,
and he knew it. But looking at a bigger picture,
one can look back on that and say, though it
is tragic that he was not the best husband to
Vivian and should have held that marriage together because of
(20:59):
his severe addiction to drugs, June Carter would eventually save
his very life, because I think if it wasn't for June,
who was out there with him, that Johnny probably would
have died of a drug overdose. He could have followed
in the footsteps of his friend Elvis Presley, but June
was someone that helped him through this very hard time.
(21:24):
Here's a quote from Johnny Cash. You know, I used
to sing with you there when they crucified my Lord
while I was stoned on amphetamines. I used to sing
all those gospel songs, but I never really felt them,
And maybe I was a little ashamed of myself at
the time because of the hypocrisy of it all. There
I was singing the praises of the Lord and singing
(21:46):
about the beauty and the piece you can find in him,
and I was stoned so on one occasion, Johnny borrowed
June Carter's Cadillac and herecked it, breaking his nose. He
lost his front teeth as well as he had head
on collision with utility poll. He claimed a wet roadway
was the cause of the accident, but he was taken
(22:08):
to Vanderbilt Hospital, where surprisingly he refused a shot of
morphine for the pain that had his noseet. And another
surprise was that of the policeman heading up the investigation
of the crash was none other than of Officer rip Nis,
June Carter's husband. So no charges were filed and the
(22:29):
incident didn't make the paper. But Officer Nix's wife undoubtedly
got an airfull at home. So I would say at
this point in his life, Johnny's trying to live in
two worlds. You know. His sister Joanne put it this way.
Johnny was like two people. She said, Johnny was one
person and Cash was the other. And she said Cash
(22:51):
cost all the trouble, and he was always struggling with
different things throughout his life and reaping the consequences of it.
And I think Johnny had too much of the world
to be happy in his relationship with God. And too
much of a relationship with God to be happy in
the world. He was in sort of this no man's land,
(23:12):
trying to live in two places at the same time,
and it was causing a lot of internal and external
conflict and problems in his life.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Well, I guess Christoberson pretty well summed it up. And
the song he wrote about me, He's a walking contradiction,
partly truth and partly fiction.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
So Johnny got to a point where, with a collapse
of his marriage to his first wife, Vivian, his addiction
to drugs, his life spiraling out of control, he effectively
decided to take his life. So he made his way
to a cave about thirty miles from Chattanooga called Nika
Jack Cave. He had actually been there before as a
(23:56):
young man looking for arrowheads and other things, but now
he just thought he would keep walking as far in
as he possibly could walk and never return again. And
that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
I remember sitting in the mouth of that cave crying
and then taking a little two sail flash light and
started walking into that cave.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I decided I'd walk as far as I could
go and then lay down.
Speaker 6 (24:22):
And I guess I probably went a mile through one
of the caverns and my flashlight completely burned out, and
it was black, black, dark, so dark.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You could feel it, and said my goodbye prayers.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
I must have dozed off because I felt a presence
within me come from outside of me to make me
sit up. This is awfully corny, but the nold Indian
trick is to wet your fingers, stick it up see
which way the wind blows. I tried everything to see
and then I finally did that, and I felt cool
(24:56):
air on one side of my finger.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I knew that I kept following it. There's you know, crawling.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Sometimes I'd fallow twenty or thirty feet into a pit,
but A claw my way back up, and.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Just as I was about to give up.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
I saw a little flick of light way off in
the distance, and I finally made it there, and I
collapsed in the mouth of the cave. When I woke,
June was there washing my face, and she said, you're
almost dead, arn't you?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
And I said you have to. I want to live.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So after this, another event happened in Lafayette, Georgia, on
November two, nineteen sixty seven. He was visiting a friend
there and went up by himself at evening and got lost,
and in an effort he get directions back to his
friend's house, he knocked on the door of an elderly
woman who lived alone, and she called the police on him.
Deputy Bob jeff responded and Patty Cash down discovered prescription
(25:52):
drugs on him, which were legal, and he took Cash
to jail and he spent the night in his south.
The next morning, the sheriff woke up Johnny and brought
him into his office. So Johnny's sick, he's despondent. He's
expecting this lawman to come down on him hard, but
instead Jones opens up a George takes out the money
and the pills he had taken off Cash the night before,
(26:14):
held them out and said, I'm going to give you
your money and you're dope back because you know better
than most people that God gave you free will to
do whatever you want with your life. Kash could throw
the pills away or go ahead and take them and
kill himself, and Sheriff Jones added, whichever one you want
to do, mister Cash will be all right with me.
Johnny sinking was going on here and As they were talking,
(26:38):
Johnny realized that this man really cared about him. In fact,
he told him they were huge Johnny Cash fans for
over a decade and at every record he had made,
the sheriff said, we love you. We've always loved you.
We've watched you on television, We've listened to you on
the radio, We've got your album of hymns. You were
probably the biggest fan you've ever had. This be the
(27:00):
deep impression on Johnny.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And you're listening to Greg Glory tell the story of
Johnny Cash and his faith walk, and it is a
difficult walk for Cash. The book Johnny Cash, The Redemption
of an American Icon. It's also a documentary. Get both
wherever you get your books or documentaries. We return with
more after these messages here on our American Stories, and
(27:37):
we continue with our American stories and the story of
Johnny Cash and his faith life. Let's pick up where
we last left off with Greg Glory.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So, Johnny Cash had this unique relationship with prisoners, and
when he wanted to make a record in a prison,
the record executives of his company thought that was the
worst idea imaginable, but it ended up being a brilliant
career choice, and Johnny debuted his song A Boy Named
(28:09):
Sue that was recorded live. Johnny had a connection to prisoners.
Though he never spent time in prison, he did spend
time in jail. He knew what it was like to fail.
He knew what it was like to hit rock bottom.
And I think the prisoners could sense that about him.
And when he was asked why he did these shows
in prisons, he said, we're here because the inmate population
(28:33):
asked us to come. We're here because we love the applause.
You give us some prison talk about a captive audience.
And most importantly, he said, I'm here because I'm a Christian.
So after Johnny's television show was canceled, he decided to
take all of that fame and all of that influence
and do something he'd been wanting to do for a
(28:54):
long time. That is, make a film about Jesus Christ.
It was called The Gospel. Wrote Now, I would not
describe this as a cinematic masterpiece, but what I would
say is his heart was in the right place. He
wanted to do something that would move people toward a
relationship with God. So he took his family and his
(29:17):
entourage over to Israel, and the man that ended up
directing the film, who was not a believer at all,
in fact, was an atheist, ended up ironically playing the
role of Jesus. We might describe him as a very
Swedish Jesus because he was very blonde, a reddish hair,
and he literally Johnny was literally just hiring people that
(29:38):
he met to be extras in the film, and his
wife June, played the role of Mary Magdalene. And the film,
in my opinion, was not a great film, but Billy Graham,
who was a close friend of Johnny, took a great
interest in it and actually gave it a second life,
and it was seen by a lot of people, and
it even resulted in people coming to faith. So this
(30:01):
is not kind of the beginning of the musical decline
of Johnny Cash. He was eventually fired by his record
label Columbia, and actually he had made them a lot
of money, and it was a really surprising turn of events.
But Johnny went on to pursue the things that mattered
to him. He continued to sing, but he also went
(30:22):
out and became an ordained minister. Very few people know
that about him, but he still had to make money.
He still had to make a living, so he ended
up having to audition to be in another record label.
Here he's sitting before a bunch of young record executives
or deciding if they want to record this musical legend,
(30:43):
and they told him basically, don't call us, we'll call you.
So Johnny's venues have become quite small at this point,
and one night he was playing at a dinner club
in Anaheim, California, and a thirty year old, long haired,
(31:06):
bearded man named Rick Rubin came to see him. Now,
Rick had been very successful with this def Jam record
label and had produced other rock acts and rap acts,
and he wanted to work with an older artist, and
so he came to hear Johnny. And after Johnny had performed,
someone came up to him and said, Hey, there's this
(31:28):
guy named Rick Rubin that wants to meet you. Well,
Johnny had never heard of Rick Rubin before, and in
walks rick and Rick introduces himself and says that he
wants to record Johnny, and Johnny asks, what are you
going to do for me that no one else has
been able to do for me before?
Speaker 4 (31:44):
I didn't believe it at first. I said, how, how
are you going to be in a different than everybody else?
And he said, because we're going to get into the
music and find out what it's the best thing Johnny
Cash can do and the most natural thing, and that's
what we're going for.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Wants to get Johnny back to his roots again. And
unbeknownst to Johnny, as Rick was recording these songs, he
already was mapping out in his mind what would become
the first of many records that Johnny would do toward
the end of his career called American Recordings, and there
is some production on them. It's sparse, but very effective,
(32:23):
and Rick reintroduced Johnny to a whole new audience of
people who had never heard of him before, specifically a
youth audience. Country music really didn't have a lot to
do with Johnny at this point, but Johnny was rediscovered
by Generation X and actually ended up winning an MTV
(32:44):
Award for his amazing video based on the Trent Reznor
song called Hurt and still to this day is something
that really moves you when you watch it. So Johnny
was having a big career comeback at this point.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
A lot of times, I feel like I got the
best of both worlds.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
When I look out a nurse, half of audience full
of young people, and half of fans my age, you know, yeah,
I feel like I got to sec a third chance
here to maybe do it right.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
On the final album they did together, Johnny's health was failing.
His wife June had already died, and he was in
deep mourning, and he just felt the best thing he
could do was go back into the studio and express
his sorrow.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
If I quit, I would just live in front of
the television and get fat and die. And you know,
I just told him, pray, I can die with my
boots on him.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
So Johnny and Rick Rubin became very good friends. And
Rick was not a believer in Jesus Christ. In fact,
I believe he was a Buddhist. But Reuben said Cash
was the most spiritually committed person he'd ever met.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
He's probably the most committed spiritual person I've ever met.
He really lived his life according to his connection with God, really,
and he had such an honest and pure way about
it that I remember we had a dinner party at
my house one night with Johnny and June and some
(34:18):
musicians and some film directors and before dinner, Johnny had
everyone hold hands and he said a prior and he
read from the Bible. And I know some of the
people at the table had never experienced that before, and
some of the people at the table were even atheists.
But his belief in what he believed was so strong
that what you believed didn't matter so much because you
(34:39):
were in the presence of someone who really believed, and
that felt good, and that made you believe really in
him more than anything else. It was really beautiful.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So I wrote this book, Johnny Casher, Redemption of an
American Icon, and I was approached by the Kingdom Story
Company that wanted to do a documentary film on the
line life of Johnny Cash based on my book. So
we agreed to this, and now the film is going
to be seen in theaters around the country on December five, six,
(35:11):
and seven as a special Fathom event. It's a beautifully
done film and we had full buy in in cooperation
from the Cash estate. But ultimately it shows that no
matter how badly you've messed up in life, that God
can make a message out of a mess. He can
bring good despite the bad, and the Bible says that
(35:34):
God can bring beauty out of ashes. He did an
interview towards the end of his life with MTV's Kurt Loader,
and he talked about his life, his career, his faith,
and his imminent death. And Johnny said to Kurt, I
expect my life to end pretty soon.
Speaker 7 (35:52):
Oh, I expect my life to end pretty soon.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
You know.
Speaker 7 (35:55):
I'm seventy one years old, and I have great faith.
Though I have unshakable faith. I've never been angry with God.
I've never turned my back on God, so to speak.
I never thought that God wasn't there. See, he's my
counselor he's my wisdom. All the good things of my
life come from him.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Where do you think we go afterwards? Where do we go?
When do we die? You mean?
Speaker 7 (36:22):
Oh, well, we all hope to go to heaven.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And a terrific job on the production and the storytelling
and editing by our own Greg Hangler, and a special
thanks to Greg Glory his book Johnny Cash The Redemption
of an American Icon and the film the documentary version,
and what a story we heard. And you know, he
did have a unique relationship with prisoners, as we learned
(36:51):
earlier in the storytelling. And I think Bono said it
best about Cash. He said, Johnny doesn't sing to the damned,
he sings with a damned and Bono is himself a
committed Christian who writes a lot about the intersection of
faith and life and doubt and in the end, music
(37:13):
and fame. The story of Hash being fired from his
label is heartbreaking, having to audition in front of young
people who see no future or talent. And then in
comes Rick Rubin into a club in California, a small venue,
and he sees something in Cash and sees something in
himself that he can bring to the table, and that
(37:35):
is getting rid of all that production, getting rid of
all the fancy boards, and having Cash connect to his
guitar and to the song and capture that authenticity as
no one can do like Rick Rubin, one of the
great producers who doesn't produce. In the end, though country
music wanted nothing to do with Cash at this stage
(37:56):
in his career, he rises again to fame with an
entirely new generation of audience. The story of Johnny Cash
his faith walk, as told by Greg Glory here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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