Cash: An Autobiography

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"￯﾿ﾽif my life has anything to say, I'll say it here￯﾿ﾽ"

—Johnny Cash, from a statement he made
on the publication of his autobiography, Cash

He was the "Man in Black", a country music legend, the "quintessential American troubadour." He was an icon of rugged individualism who had been to hell and back, telling the tale as never before. In his unforgettable autobiography, Johnny Cash tells the truth about the highs and lows, the Struggles and hard-won triumphs, and the people who shaped him. In the last year Johnny Cash has enjoyed a great resurgence of popularity winning the 2003 Grammy for Best Male Country vocalist and nominated for 7 MTV Music Video Awards. His fan base cuts across multiple generations. In the summer of 2004 a major motion picture, starring Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix will chronicle his early years and courtship of the woman who became his life's partner, June Carter Cash.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

A humble, happy look back from the man in black.

Johnny Cash answers to many names; he's JR to childhood friends and family, John to bandmates, and Johnny to fans. "Cash" is the name wife June Carter reserves for "the star, the egomaniac." The star gets plenty of ink here, from the early days at Sun Records—with Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis—to his current status as a darling of the alternative rock set. But it's the private man who's most compelling and surprisingly complex. Cash writes candidly of his recurring addiction to amphetamines and his concomitant shortcomings as a father, addresses his spirituality without sounding maudlin, and displays genuine humility at his success and very little bitterness at his abandonment by the country music establishment. A more accurate subtitle might be "The Second Autobiography," since this volume covers some of the same ground as Cash's previous work, The Man in Black (1986), but a life so chock full of oddments (he once started a forest fire with an automobile and on another occasion was nearly disemboweled by an ostrich) and renegade stands (he opposed Vietnam, heresy to the nation's blue- collar constituency) easily merits a second look. Organized around the domiciles where he divides his time—homes in Tennessee, Florida, and Jamaica, as well as his tour bus—the book stays grounded in the present, mixing reflections on his 40-year career with a running chronicle of an ongoing tour. This novel approach minimizes the as-told-to blahs that plague many a celebrity autobiography and highlights Cash's wry humor and introspection. With the help of Carr, editor of Country Music magazine, Cash keeps the pace lively until the end, when the roses he throws everyone from grandkids to music biz buddies bog things down.

Mostly, though, a pungent, substantive autobiography from one the most iconoclastic talents on the American music scene.