May 29, 2025 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1967, Johnny Cash stumbled into Nickajack Cave in Tennessee, intent on ending his life. Struggling with a relentless addiction to amphetamines, he was canceling shows and recordings while spending time in and out of hospitals and jail cells. Greg Laurie, author of Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon, shares the story.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 coming to you from where the West begins. In
Fort Worth, Texas. In nineteen sixty seven, Johnny Cash stumbled
into Nika jack Cave in Tennessee intent I'm killing himself.
(00:30):
Greg Laurie is here to tell the story. Laurie is
the author of Johnny Cash, The Redemption of an American Icon.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I would say, at this point in his life, Johnny's
trying to live in two worlds.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
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 caused 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
(01:10):
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, 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 3 (01:29):
Well, I guess Christofferson pretty well summed it up. And
the song he wrote about me, He's a walking contradiction,
partly truth and partly fiction. An Patrick Carr and a
story about me, he said, John Cash, the Indian and
the white man's camp. Maybe that's it, or maybe I'm
the white man in the Indians camp.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So Johnny got to a point where, with the 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
(02:13):
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 3 (02:25):
If you had a picture of me at that time,
he wouldn't believe it was me. There's a cave near Chattanooga,
Tennessee that I like to explore.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
I've been there several times with my friends.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Every time i'd get high, I'd get in my jeeper
truck and head for Chattanooga to those the people.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
That I thought would put up with me.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
You know, I knew I'd just about worn out my
welcome at everybody's house in Nashville from keeping them up
all night and this and that. But finally even my
friends in Chattanooga couldn't really put up me much longer.
And I saw it, and Uh, I had tournament back
(03:05):
on June on my own mother, and she had given
up on me and driven back to California where she
lived and had a slight heart attack on the way.
At that time, that didn't bother me in the least,
because there's one thing about, uh, someone addicted to pills
or alcoholics, you know, they're very selfish. You know, they
(03:27):
don't care about anybody but themselves in the way they
happen to feel right now.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And that's all I cared about. All the talk about
how I.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Feel, what I want for me, you know, and h
disregarding my four daughters in California, my mother and June
found out where I was and came to my friend's
house in Chattanooga looking for me. I found out she
was coming, so I went to the cave twenty miles
away and I had been up to three days and
nights when she got there.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So I took my beer. I was drinking a case
of beer a day and take it up to hundred pills.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Uh, half amphetamines and half barbitu, which keep me going
up and down, keep the cycle going. But I remember
sitting in the mouth of that cave crying, and then
taking a little two cell flash light and started walking
into that cave. And I decided I'd walk as far
as I could go and then lay down. And I
(04:22):
guess I probably one a mile through one of the caverns,
and my flashlight completely burned out, and it was black, black, dark,
so dark you could feel it. And I laid down
flat on my back and said my goodbye prayers. You
know I can't handle it myself. I'm giving up. I'm
(04:44):
going I must have dozed off because I felt I
felt a presence to make me sit up and look around.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I couldn't see any light.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
But uh, this is awfully corny, but the no le
Indian trickish 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
air on one side of my finger, and I knew that.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I kept following it as long, you know, crawling.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Sometimes I'd follow twenty or thirty feet into a pit,
but I clawed my way back up, and just as
I was about to give up, I saw a little
fleck of light way off in the distance, and I
started crawling and clawing toward that entrance, and I finally
made it there, and I collapsed in the mouth of
the cave. When I woke, June was there with my
(05:36):
friends from Chattannooga. June was washing my face and she said,
You're almost dead, aren't you? And I said you and
I want to live.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
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 to get directions back to his friend,
he knocked on the door of an elderly woman who
lived alone, and she called the police on him. Deputy
Bob Jeff responded and patting Cash down, discovered prescription drugs
(06:10):
on him, which were legal, and he took Cash to
jail and he spent the night in his cell. The
next morning, the sheriff woke up Johnny and brought him
into his office. Jones opens up a George takes out
the money and the pills he had taken off Cash
the night before, 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
(06:32):
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. And as they were talking, Johnny realized
that this man really cared about him. In fact, he
told him they were huge Johnny Cash fans for over
(06:54):
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 made a deep impression
on Johnny.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Greg Glory, the story of Johnny Cash's redemption and a
turning point in his spiritual life. Here on our American Stories.
Here are our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories
(07:33):
of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories from a
great and beautiful country that need to be told. But
we can't do it without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love our stories in America like we do, please
go to our American Stories dot com and click the
donate button. Give a little, give a lot, help us
(07:54):
keep the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories
dot com.
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from where the West begins. In
Fort Worth, Texas. In nineteen sixty seven, Johnny Cash stumbled
into Nika jack Cave in Tennessee intent I'm killing himself.
(00:30):
Greg Laurie is here to tell the story. Laurie is
the author of Johnny Cash, The Redemption of an American Icon.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I would say, at this point in his life, Johnny's
trying to live in two worlds.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
You know.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
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 caused 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
(01:10):
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, 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 3 (01:29):
Well, I guess Christofferson pretty well summed it up. And
the song he wrote about me, He's a walking contradiction,
partly truth and partly fiction. An Patrick Carr and a
story about me, he said, John Cash, the Indian and
the white man's camp. Maybe that's it, or maybe I'm
the white man in the Indians camp.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So Johnny got to a point where, with the 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
(02:13):
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 3 (02:25):
If you had a picture of me at that time,
he wouldn't believe it was me. There's a cave near Chattanooga,
Tennessee that I like to explore.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
I've been there several times with my friends.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Every time i'd get high, I'd get in my jeeper
truck and head for Chattanooga to those the people.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
That I thought would put up with me.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
You know, I knew I'd just about worn out my
welcome at everybody's house in Nashville from keeping them up
all night and this and that. But finally even my
friends in Chattanooga couldn't really put up me much longer.
And I saw it, and Uh, I had tournament back
(03:05):
on June on my own mother, and she had given
up on me and driven back to California where she
lived and had a slight heart attack on the way.
At that time, that didn't bother me in the least,
because there's one thing about, uh, someone addicted to pills
or alcoholics, you know, they're very selfish. You know, they
(03:27):
don't care about anybody but themselves in the way they
happen to feel right now.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And that's all I cared about. All the talk about
how I.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Feel, what I want for me, you know, and h
disregarding my four daughters in California, my mother and June
found out where I was and came to my friend's
house in Chattanooga looking for me. I found out she
was coming, so I went to the cave twenty miles
away and I had been up to three days and
nights when she got there.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
So I took my beer. I was drinking a case
of beer a day and take it up to hundred pills.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Uh, half amphetamines and half barbitu, which keep me going
up and down, keep the cycle going. But I remember
sitting in the mouth of that cave crying, and then
taking a little two cell flash light and started walking
into that cave. And I decided I'd walk as far
as I could go and then lay down. And I
(04:22):
guess I probably one a mile through one of the caverns,
and my flashlight completely burned out, and it was black, black, dark,
so dark you could feel it. And I laid down
flat on my back and said my goodbye prayers. You
know I can't handle it myself. I'm giving up. I'm
(04:44):
going I must have dozed off because I felt I
felt a presence to make me sit up and look around.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I couldn't see any light.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
But uh, this is awfully corny, but the no le
Indian trickish 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
air on one side of my finger, and I knew that.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I kept following it as long, you know, crawling.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Sometimes I'd follow twenty or thirty feet into a pit,
but I clawed my way back up, and just as
I was about to give up, I saw a little
fleck of light way off in the distance, and I
started crawling and clawing toward that entrance, and I finally
made it there, and I collapsed in the mouth of
the cave. When I woke, June was there with my
(05:36):
friends from Chattannooga. June was washing my face and she said,
You're almost dead, aren't you? And I said you and
I want to live.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
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 to get directions back to his friend,
he knocked on the door of an elderly woman who
lived alone, and she called the police on him. Deputy
Bob Jeff responded and patting Cash down, discovered prescription drugs
(06:10):
on him, which were legal, and he took Cash to
jail and he spent the night in his cell. The
next morning, the sheriff woke up Johnny and brought him
into his office. Jones opens up a George takes out
the money and the pills he had taken off Cash
the night before, 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
(06:32):
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. And as they were talking, Johnny realized
that this man really cared about him. In fact, he
told him they were huge Johnny Cash fans for over
(06:54):
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 made a deep impression
on Johnny.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, and a special thanks to
Greg Glory, the story of Johnny Cash's redemption and a
turning point in his spiritual life. Here on our American Stories.
Here are our American Stories. We bring you inspiring stories
(07:33):
of history, sports, business, faith and love. Stories from a
great and beautiful country that need to be told. But
we can't do it without you. Our stories are free
to listen to, but they're not free to make. If
you love our stories in America like we do, please
go to our American Stories dot com and click the
donate button. Give a little, give a lot, help us
(07:54):
keep the great American stories coming. That's our American Stories
dot com.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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