Johnny Cash Thesis

“But ‘till we start to make a move to make a few things right / You’ll never see me in a suit of white” sang the man everyone came to know as the Man in Black (Dolan 21). The man’s real name was Johnny Cash. Releasing numerous songs, and winning sixteen music awards, Johnny Cash became one of the best country music singers known to man. “He wore a long, black swallow- tailed preacher’s coat over a high-collared black shirt; his pants, too, and even his boots were black.” More known for his sultry singing voice and his bad boy attitude, Johnny Cash rocked the music industry to its core (Dolan 35).
On February 26th, 1932, in Kingsbury, Arkansas, the fourth of seven of Ray and Carrie Cash´s children were born. They named the baby boy John R. Cash.
Johnny was born during the economic crisis we now call The Great Depression. In order to keep their family sustained, Ray Cash moved the family to the Dyess Colony in Mississippi County, Arkansas (Dolan 33). The Cash family started a farm there where they grew many crops that they sold and lived on (Dolan 36). The Cash family rested on Sunday’s; this day they attended church services. The one part of service that young Johnny remembered liking vividly, is the songs the church would sing (Dolan 53). John Cash once said, “Those songs carried me away, and they gave me a taste of heavenly things” (Dolan 54). Between the hymns the church would sing, and participating in his older brother Roy’s band, Johnny Cash got his start in the music world. (“Johnny Cash” 2).
In 1950, he Cash graduated from Dyess High School. He decided to work a few odd jobs, but eventually, he decided to go on a four-year stay in the United States Air Force (“Johnny Cash” 2). In 1954, just after returning from his military duties, on August 7th Johnny Cash married Vivian Liberto. Just nine short months later, Vivian conceived their first of four daughters. The family resided in
On March 3, 1970, June gave birth to their son, John Carter Cash (Dolan 119). Along with his personal life, Johnny was thriving in the music industry. Cash was the winner of six Country Music Association Awards plus nine Grammy Awards (“Johnny Cash” 1). He also put some literary works on display when he wrote two books in the year 1975. One was an autobiography, with the title being, The Man in Black. His other book was titled, Man in White; it was about the life of the apostle Paul (“Johnny Cash” 1). In 1980, Johnny Cash became the youngest person of his time to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Twelve years later, he hit another milestone by also being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (“Johnny Cash” 2). He won the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1999. When he was sixty-eight years old, he released his final album, Love, God, Murder. In Cash’s later years, he suffered from the Shy- Drager’s Syndrome. “It’s a degenerative disease which causes blackouts, tremors, muscle stiffness, and it made it very prone to pneumonia”. Then, on September 12, 2003, in Nashville, Tennessee, Johnny Cash passed away from complications with diabetes (“Johnny Cash”