“His impact on country music and all music is up there in a very rarified atmosphere,” Kyle Young, director of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, told the Associated Press. “He was so accessible, and his voice was so instantly recognizable. And he used really simple arrangements. When you listened to him you almost thought you could go out and make music yourself.”
A rumbling voice of social justice, Johnny Cash, died this past week.
Cash’s 71 years seemed too short for the son of a poor farmer from Arkansas who threw caution to the wind, battled every demon, and climbed every mountain to come out not only standing, but victorious in the face of it all. We should all have that resolve. There is no better example of what a man can do to beat the odds and be a success.
Cash lived his life as he wanted too – growing to stardom was never the goal, and in many ways contradicted his own Christian ideals. He never abandoned the share-cropper, the prisoner or the embattled. He more readily stepped off whatever stoop he was on to raise them up. Some of his most noted performances – at San Quentin and Folsom Prison – are small marks of the social obligation he felt.
The Man in Black wore such garb because there was injustice, inequality and intolerance.
“Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkle clothes and cowboy boots,” Cash told the Associated Press in 1986. “I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did, and I’ve worn black clothes ever since.”
Almost a minister, but better a gangster, Cash rebelled against the ideal setting everyone wanted him to push for. He lit up his songs before that was the thing to do. He lit up a national park as well. He sang about killing when he hadn’t killed, and he set the stage for what has come not only from country music, but from folk, rock and rap.
Cash was more folk than the country pigeonhole he was placed in. He has performed with U2, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and has repossessed the works of others: Trent Reznor, Neil Diamond, Sting. Humble enough to admit he liked your song when he heard it, Cash could give it new life when he sang it.
“He is the patron saint of every kid with a guitar,” singer-songwriter Tom Waits, told the Associated Press. “Songwriters learn how to write songs from listening to each other. He’s like a wise old tree full of songs. I spent many days under his branches.”
Never before and likely never again will there be a an artist who, at 71, could light up the MTV community and show a diamond-hung culture what a man in simple black could do.
Johnny Cash – award-winning musician of 11 Grammy Awards, an artist spotlighted in the Country Music Hall of Fame since 1980 and in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame since 1992, a man who knew no boundaries – he will be sorely missed.
