“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”

Johnny Cash — the name really needs no explanation. Even now, over a decade after his death, if a random group of people were asked to select the one person they most closely identified with country music, most of them would speak his name. He was a larger-than-life figure during his lifetime, and his legend continues to grow after his death. If country music had a Mt. Rushmore, his face would be chiseled in granite right next to Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Carter Family.

Why has Johnny Cash become synonymous with country music? His hit recordings and memorable live performances have a lot to do with it, but the way that he lived his life certainly does, too. He embraced tradition, and yet he exercised the freedom to follow his own mind; he was both a god-fearing Christian and a rebellious outlaw; he moved among presidents and yet remained a man of the people; he believed in home and family and yet spent much of his life on the road performing for thousands of people. These contradictions made the Man in Black the compelling figure he was, and along with the integrity he exhibited throughout his life, they invested his music with a unique power that continues to resonate long after he left the Earth. Unfortunately, becoming a legend often translates into becoming an image more than a human being. There has been a tendency in recent years to bake down Johnny Cash’s personality into a dress code, a handful of iconic photographs, a simplistic movie bio, or even a not very representative late-career video. But Johnny Cash was much more than a defiant gesture, a fashion statement, and a few records recorded in prisons. He was a complex man with a varied and unusual life and career.