47 Fun Facts About Johnny Cash

What nickname did Cash earn from his trademark stage wardrobe?

The Man in Black explained itself in his 1971 song 'Man in Black': he said he wore black on behalf of the poor and the imprisoned.

Johnny Cash was born in 1932 to poor cotton farmers in which state?

Arkansas-born, Cash was named only by the initials J.R. because his parents couldn't agree on a first name; he began using John when he joined the Air Force.

Cash spent much of his four years in the US Air Force in West Germany doing what job?

Intercepting Soviet Morse code, he is said to have been one of the first Americans to hear that Stalin had died; he also formed his first band there.

Which label and producer first signed Johnny Cash, after turning down the sacred songs he auditioned with?

Sun Records and Sam Phillips asked for one more song, so Cash wrote 'Cry, Cry, Cry' overnight, and it shared his first single with 'Hey Porter'.

Guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant, Cash's original backing duo, were known as what?

With a drummer added they became the Tennessee Three, who backed him at Folsom and San Quentin.

What is the December 1956 jam session of Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis known as?

The Million Dollar Quartet was never a planned session, but the studio recorded it anyway, and the recordings were later released under that name.

Which animated series had Johnny Cash voice a coyote spirit guide in a 1997 episode?

The Simpsons cast him as the Space Coyote, who appears when Homer hallucinates after eating insanity peppers at a chili cook-off.

Cash closed both of his 1968 Folsom Prison shows with 'Greystone Chapel', a song written by whom?

An inmate, Glen Sherley, wrote it; a preacher who counselled Folsom prisoners passed his recording to Cash, who learned it just before the concert.

Why was Johnny Cash arrested for trespassing in Starkville, Mississippi, in 1965?

He was picking flowers on private property late at night, and he later turned the arrest into the song 'Starkville City Jail'.

Which children's author and cartoonist wrote 'A Boy Named Sue'?

Shel Silverstein is said to have drawn on his friend Jean Shepherd, who complained that growing up with a woman's name was hard.

Cash's early 'boom-chicka-boom' band sound is often likened to what?

A freight train was the image: guitarist Luther Perkins muted his strings with his palm while bassist Marshall Grant slapped an upright bass.

Cash's 1964 concept album Bitter Tears was devoted to the plight of which group?

Native Americans were its subject; when radio shunned its single 'The Ballad of Ira Hayes', Cash bought a full-page Billboard ad calling DJs gutless.

A 1965 fire on a Johnny Cash fishing trip scorched a national forest, driving off which endangered birds?

California condors fled the area; the federal government sued Cash, who insisted his truck, not he, had started it.

Where did Cash propose to June Carter in 1968?

On stage in London, Ontario, he asked mid-concert, and June, who had helped him get off drugs, married him that March in Kentucky.

The Johnny Cash Show, which ran on ABC from 1969 to 1971, was staged at which Nashville venue?

The Ryman Auditorium hosted the tapings, and Cash overrode ABC's nerves to book Pete Seeger, whose anti-war song had caused a firestorm elsewhere.

In 1965, Johnny Cash used a microphone stand to smash what at the Grand Ole Opry?

The stage lights broke, and the Opry told him it would not be needing his services any longer.

Which evangelist's friendship led Johnny Cash to make his film Gospel Road?

Billy Graham was a longtime friend, and Cash and his wife June went on to make the film about the life of Christ themselves.

At 48 in 1980, Cash tied the record for youngest inductee into which institution?

The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 1980, and a year later he joined Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis onstage in Stuttgart for the live album The Survivors.

Which Jimmy Webb song gave its name to the 1980s country supergroup Cash formed with three other stars?

Highwayman had already been recorded by Glen Campbell, and their 1985 version went to No. 1 on the country chart.

Cash relapsed into painkiller addiction in 1983 after an abdominal injury caused by which animal on his farm?

An ostrich kicked him, crushing ribs and tearing open his stomach, and he later checked into the Betty Ford Center.

In the 1976 novelty hit 'One Piece at a Time', a worker smuggles parts to build which car?

A Cadillac pieced together from years of smuggled parts ends up a mismatched mix of model years, and the song was Cash's last solo No. 1 country hit.

On his 1994 album American Recordings, Johnny Cash was accompanied by what?

An acoustic guitar was his only accompaniment, and the stripped-back album sparked a career revival that won Cash a new audience.

Johnny Cash's 1996 album Unchained was recorded with which backing band?

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers kept working with him, and Cash later covered Petty's I Won't Back Down on American III: Solitary Man.

Cash's acclaimed late cover 'Hurt' was originally written by which musician for Nine Inch Nails?

Trent Reznor at first thought the cover idea sounded gimmicky, but after watching the video he said the song wasn't his anymore.

Which two other rock songs did Cash cover in his final years, alongside 'Hurt'?

'Rusty Cage' and 'Personal Jesus' came from Soundgarden and Depeche Mode, and Cash called the latter a fine evangelical song, though he doubted it was written as one.

Cash's ex-wife Vivian Liberto met him in 1951 at what kind of venue in San Antonio?

A roller-skating rink was where they met just before he was posted overseas, and a courtship by letter led to their 1954 marriage.

Which brother's death in a table-saw accident when Johnny Cash was 12 haunted him for life?

Jack, the older brother Cash said he always wanted to be like, died of his wounds about a week after being pulled into the saw.

Which of Cash's hits was first recorded by June Carter's sister Anita, under a slightly longer title?

Ring of Fire began as Anita's '(Love's) Ring of Fire', and Cash said he dreamed of it with Mexican horns, hence his mariachi arrangement.

Who starred as Johnny Cash in the 2005 biopic Walk the Line?

Joaquin Phoenix did his own singing, and the soundtrack built largely on his vocals won him a Grammy.

What did Reese Witherspoon win for playing June Carter in Walk the Line?

The Oscar for Best Actress rewarded a role in which she sang all of June's songs herself, though she had never sung professionally.

Rosanne Cash's 2009 album was built on what her father gave her at 18?

A list of essential songs, 100 in all, was his way of teaching her the roots of the genre she was starting out in.

Johnny Cash died in September 2003, aged 71, of complications from what?

Diabetes-related nerve damage proved to be his illness, after he had told audiences he had Parkinson's and doctors had diagnosed Shy-Drager syndrome.

Cash sang lead vocals on 'The Wanderer', the closing track of which rock band's 1993 album?

U2 had pictured Cash's voice on the song from the start, and he recorded his part in Dublin during the album sessions.

Cash's longtime lakeside home was sold after his death to which fellow musician?

Barry Gibb was having the house renovated when a blaze in April 2007 destroyed it completely.

Granada Television filmed Cash's 1969 concert inside which US prison?

San Quentin was the prison, and Cash debuted a song he wrote about it there, singing it twice in a row.

Cash's live album På Österåker was recorded at a prison in which country?

Sweden was the country, and Cash brought Carl Perkins along and sang prison songs such as City Jail and Life of a Prisoner there.

Who portrays Johnny Cash in the 2024 Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown?

Boyd Holbrook was the villain in James Mangold's Logan, and Mangold cast him as Cash partly because they had worked together multiple times.

A seatmate on a late-1970s flight told Johnny Cash his family name came from which country?

Scotland, said the keeper of Falkland Palace sitting beside him, and Cash went on to trace his family to Strathmiglo in Fife.

Which British rock star duetted with Cash on 'New Moon Over Jamaica' in 1988?

Paul McCartney joined Cash in a lean spell, after Columbia had dropped him in 1986.

Who wrote 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down', which Cash sang uncensored on his TV show in 1970?

Kris Kristofferson had once swept floors at Columbia's studios, and he landed a helicopter at Cash's home to get his songs heard.

Which fellow singer, addicted to amphetamines, briefly shared a Nashville apartment with Cash in the 1960s?

Waylon Jennings had given up his seat on the 1959 flight that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, his bandleader, and felt responsible for years.

Which former US vice president spoke at Johnny Cash's funeral in September 2003?

Al Gore said Cash had called June's death the hardest pain he had ever felt, and told mourners that Cash was ready.

In 1935 the Cash family moved to Dyess, a farming colony set up under which programme?

The New Deal colony flooded in 1937, and Cash later turned that disaster into his song 'Five Feet High and Rising'.

When narcotics officers arrested Cash in El Paso in 1965, which drug did they suspect he was smuggling?

Heroin was what they expected, but the stash hidden in his luggage turned out to be amphetamine pills and sedatives.

Which vocal group spent eight years as Johnny Cash's opening act and backing singers from 1964?

The Statler Brothers had been called the Kingsmen, and they picked their new name from a box of tissues.

After June died in 2003, what did Cash throw himself into until his own death?

Recording new songs was what June would have wanted, Cash said, and he kept at it on the days he felt well enough to sing.

Cash's 1984 self-parody single imagined his brain being transplanted into what?

A chicken got his old brain, and Cash's enthusiasm soon soured: he later renounced the novelty song and its video.