In the late ’60s, his records sold better than the Beatles. A 12-time winner of the world’s most prestigious music awards and the youngest inductee into the Hall of Fame, he garnered explosive applause around the world, traveling up and down the USA, Canada, Western Europe and to concert venues in Japan, New Zealand and Australia. The American singer in the ’60s enjoyed enormous popularity in belligerent Vietnam and the countries of the socialist camp. A transatlantic idol of country music fans, his albums sold 50 million copies worldwide. The list of his accomplishments, confirming his undoubted success and hit recordings, could go on forever. But is it necessary?
After all, the main thing, the zest for which he has forever entered the history of world music, and for which we still listen to his masterpieces with awe, is the heartfelt sincerity of performance, sincere warmth and understanding, which we want and sometimes lack in everyday life.
His musical career began at a tender age. As a twelve years old (born February 26, 1932 in Kinsland, Arkansas), a passionate fan of country music, Johnny Cash sang songs of favorite performers and slowly wrote himself. He first introduced his creativity to the general public on the radio station KLCN when he was still in high school. The beginning of a complicated career path…
Then came a move to Detroit, work at an automobile plant. Later – service in the U.S. Air Force. It was then that Cash bought his first guitar and finally got an opportunity to do what he loved – composing music. After his demobilization in ’54 Johnny Cash settled in Memphis, married Texan Vivian Leberto and decided to learn a profession allied to music – radio editor. At the same time he formed his first band in a band with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. The trio played country music mostly on local radio station KWEM, while unsuccessfully pounding the door of record companies.
A light in the unsuccessful career began to dawn in 1955, when Sun Records owner Sam Phillips finally agreed to audition Johnny Cash. However, the future legend’s work did not interest the producer as unconventional. But after a couple of months, the persistent Cash finally won the favor of Uncle Sam. So the double single “Cry Cry Cry / Hey Porter”, recorded together with Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, was born. The record reached No. 14 on the country chart and stayed on the Louisiana charts for about a year. The second single, “Folsom Prison Blues,” presented to the public in early 1956, finished first in the Top 5 of the country chart, and the third, “I Walk the Line,” was an immediate hit and lasted six weeks, figuring in the Top 20 of the pop chart as well.
It was a similarly meteoric start to Johnny’s career in ’57. Hits followed one after another, lingering on the charts with enviable consistency. His unique musical style becomes recognizable and popular. But Johnny continues to find his own way in creativity, at the same time honing his stage persona. As a result, his powerful, deep, voluminous, resonating, penetrating baritone and lush, accented guitar gave the world a country sound unheard of before. Over time, the cashier sound has become fundamental and a benchmark in the world of the country genre. He became so popular that label executives gave him the highest credibility, releasing the artist’s debut album “Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar” as a long-player. The next single, “Ballad of a Teenage Queen,” stayed at the top of the charts for nine consecutive weeks.
The following year Cash cuts ties with Sun Records, preferring the more loyal but non-commercial gospel music he loved and the more generous Columbia. During this period, he writes his most harmonizing compositions: the singles “All Over Again,” “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” and the longplay “The Fabulous Johnny Cash,” continuing to conquer the charts. Since 1959, Johnny Cash has been a regular on the radio airwaves. He became so popular (read “profitable”) that the Columbia label splurged on his cherished dream: the gospel album Hymns by Johnny Cash. The record did not bring much demand, as one could have foreseen. But Cash would persistently refer to his favorite genre many times, right up to the end of the seventies.