Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was one of the most influential and wide-ranging figures in American music. Born in Kingsland, Arkansas to poor cotton farmers, he signed to Sun Records in 1955 and recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Unlike his Sun contemporaries, Cash arrived as a songwriter — "Cry! Cry! Cry!," "I Walk the Line," and "Folsom Prison Blues" were his own compositions. After leaving Sun for Columbia Records, he made the records that defined his legacy: the live Folsom Prison and San Quentin albums, Bitter Tears, and a string of country hits that crossed genre boundaries. Cash wore black as a deliberate statement, embodying solidarity with the poor, imprisoned, and forgotten. His late-career collaboration with producer Rick Rubin — the American Recordings series, beginning in 1994 — is one of the great artistic comebacks in popular music history. His cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" in 2002 is widely considered one of the most powerful recordings of his career. Cash was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1980) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992).