50 Fun Facts About Johnny Cash

What nickname did Cash earn from his trademark stage wardrobe?

His 1975 autobiography took the name as its title and sold 1.3 million copies.

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

His boyhood home in the New Deal colony of Dyess was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

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

He is said to have been one of the first Americans to learn of Stalin's death, via Morse code, and he formed his first band, the Landsberg Barbarians, there.

Which label and producer signed Johnny Cash in 1955 after rejecting the sacred songs he auditioned with?

His given name was simply J. R.; the Air Force would not accept initials, so he became John R., and only became 'Johnny' when he signed.

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 Sun Studio jam of Cash, Presley, Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis known as?

Sam Phillips had brought in the still-unknown Lewis to add piano to a Carl Perkins session; a Broadway musical about the night opened in 2010.

Cash got the 'boom-chicka-boom' rhythm on 'I Walk the Line' by wedging what into the neck of his guitar?

The 1956 single stayed on the charts for over 43 weeks and sold more than two million copies.

Which 1951 film, seen while stationed in Germany, inspired Cash's 1955 hit about a California jailhouse?

The song borrowed heavily from Gordon Jenkins's 'Crescent City Blues'; Landsberg, where Cash was posted, has a famous prison of its own.

Cash's live album At Folsom Prison was recorded on which date?

He played two shows that day backed by June Carter, Carl Perkins and the Tennessee Three; the album went triple platinum in 2003.

Cash's first notable prison concert, on New Year's Day 1958, was at which prison?

He returned there in 1969 for the album that produced 'A Boy Named Sue'; a young Merle Haggard was famously in the audience at San Quentin.

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

It became Cash's biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit and his only top-ten single there.

Who wrote the 1963 crossover hit that Cash arranged with mariachi horns after hearing it in a dream?

June's sister Anita recorded it first; Cash said he dreamed the song with 'Mexican horns', hence the mariachi arrangement.

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

Its single 'The Ballad of Ira Hayes' was largely boycotted by radio, so Cash personally lobbied DJs to play it.

Cash's 1967 duet with June Carter 'Jackson' won which honour?

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon released their own version of it as a single from the Walk the Line soundtrack.

Where did Cash propose to June Carter in 1968?

They married a week or so later, on 1 March, in Franklin, Kentucky.

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

The Statler Brothers opened every episode; guests included Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt in her first TV appearance.

Cash duetted with Dylan on 'Girl from the North Country' and wrote Grammy-winning liner notes for which Dylan album?

Cash championed Dylan and other outsiders while serving as country music's most visible establishment figure.

Which two songs did Nixon's office ask Johnny Cash to play at the White House in 1970, requests he declined?

Cash said he simply did not know them well enough on short notice; Nixon joked in his introduction that one did not tell Johnny Cash what to sing.

Cash's friendship with Billy Graham led him to co-write and narrate a 1973 film about whose life?

He later wrote a novel about the Apostle Paul, Man in White, published in 1986.

At 48 in 1980, Johnny Cash became the youngest living inductee of which institution?

Other than Elvis Presley, he is the only artist inducted as a performer into both the Country and the Rock and Roll halls of fame.

Which three artists joined Cash in the country supergroup the Highwaymen?

They released three albums between 1985 and 1995, starting with Highwayman.

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

The bird kicked and wounded him; he entered treatment at Nashville's Cumberland Heights in 1989.

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

The narrator works on the General Motors assembly line in Detroit and cannot afford one, so he 'salami-slices' the parts out of the factory.

Which producer revived Cash's career in the 1990s with the stripped-back American Recordings series?

The 1994 debut was recorded in Cash's living room with only his Martin guitar and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

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

Sylvia Massy engineered and mixed the sessions under Rick Rubin.

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

He was initially sceptical, then said of Cash's version that 'that song isn't mine anymore'.

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

They came from Soundgarden and Depeche Mode respectively; he also recorded U2's Bono-penned 'The Wanderer'.

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

They married after his Air Force service; Rosanne, the eldest of the four, became a star in her own right.

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

Jack died of his wounds a week after the accident; the story is dramatised at the start of Walk the Line.

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

Anita's version was titled '(Love's) Ring of Fire' and appeared on her album Folk Songs Old and New.

Who played Johnny Cash in the 2005 biopic Walk the Line, earning a Best Actor nomination?

He learned guitar for the role and won a Grammy for his contributions to the soundtrack.

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

The film, directed by James Mangold, grossed $186.8 million on a $28 million budget.

Walk the Line was based on which two of the singer's books?

Man in White is his 1986 novel about the Apostle Paul, not a memoir.

Cash died on 12 September 2003 at a Nashville hospital, aged 71, of complications from what?

June had died less than four months earlier; his final recordings were made on 21 August 2003.

Cash's final public performance, on 5 July 2003, took place at which venue?

Before singing 'Ring of Fire' he read a statement about the spirit of June Carter overshadowing him that night.

Cash's lakeside home in Hendersonville was sold in 2006 to which fellow musician?

The Bee Gees singer and his wife Linda paid $2.3 million; the main road through Hendersonville is now Johnny Cash Parkway.

What kind of animal, found near Folsom Prison, was named Aphonopelma johnnycashi in 2015?

Folsom also opened a Johnny Cash Trail in 2014 with eight art pieces telling his story.

Which British broadcaster filmed Johnny Cash's 1969 San Quentin prison concert?

Michael Darlow produced and directed the documentary; the album was nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy.

At which Swedish prison did Johnny Cash record a live album in 1973?

He recorded four prison albums in all: Folsom, San Quentin, Österåker and A Concert Behind Prison Walls.

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

Cash's real-life letters of encouragement to the young Dylan feature in the story.

A DNA test on Finding Your Roots in 2021 disproved which claim of Rosanne Cash's family?

His paternal grandmother had claimed Cherokee blood; Cash's Native American advocacy was sincere regardless.

Cash's 1987-1991 spell with which label produced Water from the Wells of Home, featuring Paul McCartney?

Columbia had dropped him after nearly three decades; the McCartney pairing preceded the Rick Rubin comeback.

The Johnny Cash Show's closing programme in 1971 was a special devoted to what kind of music?

Guests included Mahalia Jackson and Billy Graham; Cash had refused to censor Kristofferson's 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down' on the same show.

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

The two later toured together as half of the Highwaymen.

Where were Cash's public funeral services held, before he was buried beside June?

Kris Kristofferson and George Jones were among the mourners; he was buried at Hendersonville Memory Gardens.

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

The Depression-era colony gave poor families land to work; his boyhood home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

In his 1965 El Paso arrest, how many Dexedrine capsules were found hidden in Cash's guitar case?

Because they were prescription drugs rather than narcotics, he received a suspended sentence.

Which group opened for Cash in every episode of The Johnny Cash Show?

The ABC show, produced by Screen Gems, ran from June 1969 to March 1971.

Roughly how many songs did Cash record in the last four months of his life after June's death?

June had urged him to keep working; Rick Rubin recalled Cash saying he would die if he had nothing to do.

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

In 'The Chicken in Black', Cash receives a bank robber's brain in return.