JOHNNY CASH 
In 1956, Sun Records was able to show off by hosting an impromptu jam session by the Million Dollar Quartet, having a genuinely stupendous line-up: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis (Sun-signed artists all, though Elvis was by then at RCA). As to the Quartet, Johnny Cash became one of country music’s greatest artists. (May 2011) * * * Al Dobbs, an actor friend who mostly worked as a cue-card holder, worked hard to get the word out about Jim Sullivan’s music (it just wasn’t in Sullivan’s own nature to do that). Among those he pitched to were Jim Hughart, the bass player for the band on the Steve Allen Show. Dobbs also made the rounds at Nashville radio stations when he happened to be working there one time and tried to get in to see Johnny Cash’s manager. (October 2011) * * * Shel Silverstein had a long series of novelty hits as well, but mostly as a songwriter, not a performer (he was also a fine cartoonist). He wrote most of the music for the rock band Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, including their hits “The Cover of the Rolling Stone”, “Sylvia’s Mother”, and “Freakin’ at the Freakers Ball”; he is also the author of a famous novelty hit by Johnny Cash, “A Boy Named Sue”, and “I Got Stoned and I Missed It” for Jim Stafford.
(March 2013) * * * Kris Kristofferson is probably better known as a songwriter – such as Janis Joplin’s posthumous hit song, “Me and Bobby McGee”, plus “For the Good Times” (a hit by Ray Price, among others), “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” (recorded by Johnny Cash) and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (Sammi Smith’s version being the most successful), which were all #1 hits on one Billboard or Canadian chart or other – or as an actor in dozens of films, such as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, A Star Is Born, the Blade films, and The Motel Life. He has a rough-and-tumble reputation as a hard-liver, and in part, that fuels his interest in spiritual matters. Jesus has clearly been on his mind over the years; his album names include Jesus Was a Capricorn (simply an observation that Christmas Day falls within that astrological sign).
“Why Me” was recorded by many others, among them Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, George Jones, David Allan Coe, Merle Haggard, and Cliff Richard.
(July 2014)
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I first learned of the Carter Family when I saw original member “Mother Maybelle” Carter joined by her children, June Carter Cash (Johnny Cash’s wife by that time), Helen Carter and Anita Carter – “the Carter Sisters” – on television and on the cover of a record album that I cannot seem to locate online. The group began using the name the Carter Family following the death of family patriarch A. P. Carter in 1960, so the term the Original Carter Family is often used to refer to the legendary group.
(February 2015)
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For some reason, over the years the 1970’s have gotten a reputation as a poor decade for music. (So do the 1950’s, for that matter, even though that is where rock and roll came from). It certainly cannot be because everything sounded the same. Most of the British Invasion bands were still active. The top American acts were still going strong as well – Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Carole King, Simon and Garfunkel, Linda Ronstadt, the Beach Boys, the Band, Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, etc. – and major stars who arrived in the 1970’s include Elton John, Michael Jackson, Queen, ABBA, Billy Joel, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Prince, James Taylor, and Tom Petty. Anyone who says they are a music fan has to be able to find someone, and probably several someones on that list that they like a lot. (December 2016) |