Cash (1997) - Johnny Cash

Be honest, we've all done it. You've had a bad day, the kids are doing your head in, there's tension with the wife, work is tough, you've had a couple of drinks, you pick up the guitar, drop your voice about 19 octaves, stare out the window and mournfully croon "I hear the train a-coming, it's rollin' round the bend, and I ain't see the sunshine, since I don't know when". Or that might just be me. Whose to say?

Either way, there is no denying the magnetism woven into the music of Johnny Cash and in terms of being able to conjure the most melancholic music of the masculine variety (alliteration alert) he is pretty much in a class of his own. For further evidence, look no further than 1994's 'American Recordings', featuring just the man in black, his guitar and an ocean of heartache. Fantastic stuff.

Part of the allure of Johnny Cash in his lifetime was the portrait painted by said music. Through various recordings he became something of an ultra-cool, deeply enigmatic, almost mythical figure. Who was this gruff-voiced country boy singing about doing hard time and committing violent crimes such as shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die? Well, the answers lie, somewhat disappointingly, in this book. In Cash's own words which adorn the front cover: "If my life has anything to say...I'll say it here". All very 'on-brand' for a self-styled highwayman and singular entity within the country music scene. The problem is he's already done it all in the music, so did we even need this book at all?

From early classics like 'Folsom Prison Blues' and 'Walk The Line' to later works such as 'Hurt', or 'The Beast In Me', his macabre baritone has always seemed to speak to, and for, the down n' outs of the world - giving voice to those people on the other side of the tracks, struggling to make ends meet and scrapping through the old hard knock life. Thus you can't help but buy into the mythology of it all and think that the artist singing these songs is one of them, and when you read this autobiography, you realise quite quickly that this is not necessarily the case. But that is ok. People who live their lyrics tend to have a poor track record when it comes to living a long and fruitful life - so maybe we'll allow artistic license here for the purpose of the greater good.

This journey itself is sort of a meandering look at Cash's own life, beginning with his current life (featuring a quite harrowing story of a near-death home invasion in Jamaica) and wistfully dipping into the past. From his dirt-poor, fringe, existence in Dyess, Arkansas, we learn that John had something of a Huckleberry Finn-esque upbringing - rooting around backwoods, playing in cottonfields etc - until the single major event of his life happened; the untimely, and pretty gruesome, death of his older brother Jack. By all accounts this was a major moment in young Johnny's life and set him on the path to rectify this pain via the medium of song. However, here we don't get much insight into how this event affected him in such a way. Instead, he spends more time on the negative impact the event had on his father, who quickly sank into an abyss of booze and pity. All of this is fine, some things are probably very difficult to talk about, but when you consider which subjects are happily expounded upon later in the book you can't help but feel a little cheated in terms of insight into the soul of a great artist.

From there we get your fairly typical autobiographical plot points, the first tinkerings, the toiling through the 'getting actually good' phase, the big break, and so on. This is all interesting stuff and made for the premise of the 2015 smash-hit film 'Walk The Line' so it certainly makes for a compelling enough read. However, as tends to be the case with people who have suffered with such things, we spend a lot more time delving into the never-ending pit of drug-abuse and alcoholism. Again, this is all fine, but there's not really much insight to the whole thing. Not much effort to understand why one would go to such lengths to destroy himself. He just sort of says how many 'pills' he was doing in a day and how out of it he was during the process. Again, all fine, but for someone whose music has such apparent depth and heart, it all feels a bit thin on the bone and an active attempt to keep you at arm's length.

There is also a certain selfishness on display. Of course, it's fair to assume that writing an honest and forthright autobiography without having a fairly self-involved point of view is probably difficult, and who knows whether there was a choice made to cut out anything resembling sentimentality towards the loved ones he hurt along the way, but there seems little attempt to reflect on the 'why' behind all of this destructive behaviour, instead just sort of laying it out and leaving it at that. Maybe that's the point? Maybe we're supposed to fill in the gaps? You just can't help but notice that, on evidence of this reading at least, everyone else in his life has to take a back seat to the ego of the big man. Even the saintly presence of June Carter (a music heavyweight in her own right) doesn't really get a look in. Yes, he talks about them all, but they're all within the context of his self-made persona. The same goes for his peers - Elvis, Dylan, Nelson etc. - they get mentioned but we don't get much of a look into how their presence affected Johnny on his career path. They just get a cursory look-in.

The same could be said of the entire book, if truth be told. It touches on all of the surface points well enough, but never really goes far beyond that. In fact the only two subjects that do seem to get a bit of additional airtime are his Nashville home - apparently a place which brought him great peace in later years - and his Christian faith. These two subjects, probably top of mind at the time of writing, get more reflection and depth of thought than anything else and are obviously things he feels more comfortable discussing. One of the few things true joy is expressed at is praying with, of all people, southern firebrand Billy Graham. All of which leaves you with the disappointing experience that Johnny Cash the author, and therefore likely the person himself, ends up going from the coolest man alive to sounding like a bog-standard Republican, middle-American, grandad. Not what you might be expecting.

For someone whose music is so rich, so vivid, and speaks to almost unfiltered version of Americana, you just really don't expect to have that be the final takeaway. When you listen to his music, you are drawn in by romance, scenery, pain, joy, and this level of substance - it could be argued - has been the cornerstone of his music career in general. Obviously this is why his catalogue is what it is and probably just proves that his chosen artform was so effective because he obviously felt a lot more comfortable letting us in via a guitar and a microphone, than actually talking about it all. This, unfortunately, doesn't greatly translate to a thrilling read but that's ok. It would be quite an ask to assume a man be able to make such affecting music and being a master penman as well. Thus, overall, as music autobiographies go, this just about does the job of getting us some cursory information around all of your favourite moments, but really there's not much beyond that. It also makes you appreciate just what a great job James Mangold did with 'Walk The Line' (2005) as it takes the bare bones of this writing, and fills it with heart. Something found a wee bit lacking here. It's still worth a visit, but don't expect to learn much you don't already know.

If anything, it almost proves the old adage that you should never meet your heroes. Here the enigma behind those haunting melodies is revealed and doesn't quite live up to the myth. But isn't that always the case? Sometimes it's best to just have the music and let the rest land where it may. Or, as the saying goes, sometimes it's better to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

★★☆☆☆

JB.