This article first appeared in Now Dig This , the longest-running magazine dedicated to the Big Beat. All words copyright Michael Darlowβ¦. He was born in February in Arkansas, the fourth of the seven children of poor, Southern Baptist, share-cropper farmers who had been ruined in the Depression.
For the first few years after the move it continued to be a hard life of never-ending work and, from the age of four, Johnny joined his family working in the fields, singing along with them as they worked β hymns, work songs and ballads. His childhood was surrounded by music.
From the age of twelve Johnny began to write songs of his own. In , after a brief stint working in an autobody factory, Johnny enlisted in the US Air Force and, after training, was posted to Germany as a radio intercept operator.
In he left the Air Force and returned home to America, married his sweetheart, Vivian, moved to Tennessee and, while working as a door-to-door salesman, embarked on his musical career. By the early s Cash was a big star. But the continuous touring β he was regularly playing up to gigs a year β took its toll. I was taking amphetamines by the handful, literally, and barbiturates by the handful too β¦ and I drank.
I was scraping the filthy bottom of the barrel of life. From then on Johnny received regular requests to perform in prisons around the country. Johnny and June had first met in when he and the Carter Family, who were widely regarded as country music royalty, appeared on the same bill at a concert in Dallas. They immediately fell for each other but June, like Johnny, was already married. By early , when Johnny and The Carter Family began regularly touring the country music circuit together, Johnny and June were deeply in love.
