Johnny Cash: The Life

  One of the two songs recorded that day was impressive. “You Beat All I Ever Saw” was a love song with some of the simple lyrical conviction and melodic ease of “I Walk the Line.” As with “For Lovin’ Me,” however, something misfired during the session. The musical backing was uninspired, and Cash’s vocals failed to convey the heartfelt words, especially when he delivered the title line in a low, gruff, gimmicky manner.

  The other song was the ill-conceived “Put the Sugar to Bed,” which listed Maybelle Carter as co-writer. It sounded like a mix of Cash’s usual wordplay and a night of too many drugs. It even opened with another burst of the “Ring of Fire” trumpets. Once more, Marshall Grant shook his head at what he was hearing.

  With nothing else at hand, Law released “You Beat All I Ever Saw” and “Put the Sugar to Bed” as a single, and “You Beat” became a modest hit. But the session reinforced Holiff’s belief that Cash needed a new producer. He couldn’t understand why Law wasn’t able to get better work out of an artist of Cash’s stature—regardless of drug problems.

  In a letter to Cash days after “You Beat All I Ever Saw” went out to disc jockeys, Holiff wrote: “I urge you to declare yourself immediately and go with Bob Johnson [sic]. Contrary to the various malicious rumors about him—he is too smart to treat you in a high-handed manner or come on strong in any way with you. But he is man enough to stand up to you and take a stand.”

  He then challenged Cash himself. “Although you’ve never been exactly undernourished in the area of good material or the ability to come up with same, no one is infallible and sometimes your good judgment has wavered,” he wrote, adding that Johnston “is musically knowledgeable and creative enough [to offer] at least palatable and exciting ideas for your consideration. That’s more than anyone has done in recent years.”

  Holilff urged Cash to speak up on behalf of Johnston, but offered to do so himself—“tactfully”—if Cash felt reluctant for any reason, assuring his client, “Columbia quite naturally will abide by your decision.” Clearly, Holiff had already been twisting the label’s arm. He sent a blind carbon copy of the letter to Bill Gallagher, the vice president and general manager of Columbia Records, who was in a position to decide Law’s fate.

  Johnston himself had already been working internally to take over Nashville’s country operations. He had been lobbying Gallagher for months, but how could he get rid of Law or Frank Jones, whom Law had brought in as his second in command with the understanding he’d eventually take over?

  The answer came from Clive Davis, the shrewd, ambitious attorney who was being groomed to replace Goddard Lieberson as head of CBS Records, which ran the Columbia and Epic labels. As an attorney rather than a “music man,” Davis was a controversial choice within the company, and many shook their heads when he started making musical decisions.

  Though a fan of Broadway musicals and mainstream pop, Davis saw that times were changing, and he was alarmed that rival labels were doing a much better job of signing artists who were attractive to the young rock generation. He also felt that Nashville was too content selling to the country audience rather than trying to pick up additional sales in the far larger pop market. Because of Johnston’s work with Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel and his feel for country music, Davis saw him as an ideal replacement for Law, who would reach the mandatory retirement age of sixty-five the following February 27.

  Columbia had routinely waived that requirement for top executives, including Lieberson himself, but Davis made it clear to Law that he would have to exit. He felt that Law and Jones were both too timid about adding pop appeal to their records because they were afraid of alienating country music DJs. To make the decision less harsh, Davis agreed to Law’s request that he be allowed to keep working, as an independent producer, with four of his artists—as long as those artists wanted to keep working with him. The ones on his list: Cash, Ray Price, Carl Smith, and the duo Flatt and Scruggs.

  Insiders at the label and in Nashville knew about the pending changes by the end of the year, and Columbia let everyone else in on the news in January. Billboard reported that Johnston was moving to Nashville shortly to take over from Law and that he was bringing some of his New York acts, including Dylan, to Nashville to record. Despite Holiff’s urgings, Cash, out of loyalty, stuck with Law for a few more sessions. Cash just didn’t like to be rushed when it came to decision making. June Carter could attest to that.

  Chapter 18

  The Divorce, Bob Johnston, and a Suicide Tale

  I

  EVER SINCE THE “It Ain’t Me, Babe” duet, John and June’s teamings were an increasingly popular part of the live show. One reason was the chemistry; they looked like a real couple, and they were having fun. Even more popular than “Babe” in the show was “Jackson,” a song written by Billy “Edd” Wheeler, a budding songwriter and playwright who had the idea for the song after reading Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and admiring the savage verbal skirmishes between the college professor and his wife. He wrote “Jackson” as a good-natured folksy tale of domestic sarcasm.

  John thought it’d sound great live because he and June could act out the song’s raucous spirit. They had been singing it in concert for some time before finally recording it on January 11, 1967. With the added punch of Carl Perkins’s guitar, the music on “Jackson” sounded snappier than on any Cash single since “Ring of Fire.” In the song, the fire has gone out of a relationship, and John’s character boasts about the sexual conquests ahead when he visits the city of Jackson. June, in turn, knows it’s all bluster and that he’s just a big-talking man everyone can see through. Law penciled it in as a potential single.

  Encouraged, Cash sat down with Law a few weeks later to play some songs he had been writing, as well as a few older ones he had been too uncertain about to show him. It was an odd assortment, but Law liked a couple of them enough to schedule a session for the first week in March. Many of the stories touched on familiar Cash themes. Two stood out: “Another Song to Sing” and “The Masterpiece,” both of which spoke to the heart of Cash’s love for music with an inspirational edge.

  As usual after Ride This Train, Cash spent some time figuring out how to tie the songs together. Once again he saw them as snapshots of people and beliefs from the American past; but he knew that he couldn’t turn them into another series of stops on a train ride, and some of them were too contemporary to fit into another chronicle of the Old West. So he settled on the timeless imagery of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He wanted the music to be simple, often nothing more elaborate than what you’d hear around a campfire. Cash began the album, From Sea to Shining Sea, with the opening notes of the national anthem, giving way to a narration that featured another of his favorite devices—a shout-out of actual towns, including, in a nod to Bob Dylan, Hibbing, Minnesota.

  The wild card in the sessions was another playful duet along the lines of “Jackson.” Using an idea from Marshall Grant, Cash reworked the lyrics of “Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man” for him and June. There was no way the song would fit into the collection, but Cash and Law were thinking about a duet album to capitalize on “Jackson,” which had already entered the country sales chart. They called the album Carryin’ On with Johnny Cash & June Carter, which surely caused snickers among the Cash entourage.

  II

  Tired of his nomadic existence in Nashville and wanting a home for the girls to visit during the summer, Cash looked in the early spring at some lots along Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, a small town just north of Nashville. He asked Braxton Dixon, a successful architect-builder, to help him in his search. On a tour of the area, Dixon drove Cash past a house that he was building for himself—a house built of stone and carefully chosen hand-hewn timber. Set on a cliff, the house offered lovely views of the lake. Cash didn’t want to see anything else. “Name your price,” Cash said.

  Wanting to keep the house for himself, Dixon set a figure he thought was high enough—$150,000—to cau
se Cash to back off. But Cash refused to blink. Even though he had to borrow money from Columbia Records to make the down payment, Cash had to have that house.

  “It just looked like what I’d like to live in, the rough timbers and the stones, on the lake,” he said. “It was quiet and peaceful. It was also big and roomy and rugged. I don’t think he ever expected me to pay him for that house. I expected he thought I would have to give it back to him. If I’d stayed in the shape I was in, I’d never pay for it. But I knew all along that someday I’d pay him back…because I knew I’d straighten up.”

  If Cash really believed he would someday straighten up, he may have been the only one.

  Cash’s behavior, especially when it came to missing shows, continued to infuriate Holiff, who was having so much trouble securing bookings that he turned to the head of the largest talent-booking agency in Nashville in hopes of lining up lucrative county and state fair appearances for Cash. But Cash’s reputation prevented even the agency’s head, Lucky Moeller, from finding many takers—just four dates from among the hundreds of fairs around the country that year.

  Holiff continued to believe that Cash’s future rested with Bob Johnston, and he hoped to take advantage of a brief Canadian tour in early April to persuade Cash finally to request a change of producers. But John was in no shape even to listen; he was becoming increasingly unreliable on the road. Instead of making progress on the Johnston matter, Holiff had to deal just with getting Cash to the next town. Cash made it only as far as Edmonton, the fourth stop.

  “He was on a rampage of pills, and he had a Martin, an expensive guitar, very expensive guitar,” Holiff recalled. “And he was in a darkened room, and he hadn’t slept for a couple of days, and he’s already missed one of the dates. And they’re all my dates that I had to set up because nobody wanted to book him. You know, they couldn’t trust that he would be there. He took the guitar and smashed it against the wall. I had said things to provoke him. And I guess he just didn’t have the nerve to hit me with the guitar, so he hit it against the wall and smashed it.”

  Just weeks after the Edmonton incident, Holiff sent Cash a scolding telegram: “YOUR PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOR IS TOTALLY REPREHENSIBLE, SHOWING A COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THE RIGHTS AND FEELINGS OF EVERYONE AROUND YOU.”

  Still, Holiff continued to represent Cash—and he continued to push for Johnston. Gradually, Cash weakened. Maybe Holiff was right. After all, Johnston was working with Bob Dylan. But Cash didn’t want to make a move until he and Law finished the duets album. He thought he owed Don that much.

  Eager to show off his new house and mark the twenty-third anniversary of his brother Jack’s death, Cash invited his family members to join him in Hendersonville on May 20, even though only the kitchen and one bedroom were finished. Since his parents didn’t want to fly alone from California, Cash flew to Los Angeles to accompany them on the flight back to Tennessee. While in California, Cash picked up some more drugs, and he was as high as the plane on the return trip.

  “I’d been up for about three days and nights straight with no sleep, and I was told later that when we landed in Memphis, I got up out of my seat and fell on my face on the floor of the plane,” he said. “I had taken barbiturates, thinking I would sleep until Memphis, but evidently I had taken far too many.

  “The pilot told Mother and Daddy, ‘You’ll have to get him out of here. He can’t fly on to Nashville on this plane.’ They had me carried off, called Roy, who hadn’t yet left Memphis, and took me to a motel. The next thing I remember was the following day on the plane going to Nashville. I stumbled off the plane, still groggy from the barbiturates.”

  Tommy Cash was waiting at the Nashville airport, and he was furious about the embarrassment his brother had caused their mother and father. Tommy, who’d been hired by John to represent him on various projects in Nashville, was heartbroken over the collapse of his brother’s marriage and his continued drug abuse.

  “During those years, I saw his personality change,” says Tommy Cash. “He became filled with paranoia and anger. When I’d talk to him about it, he’d say, ‘Mind your own business. I’m all right, I’m fine.’ He wasn’t mean to me, but he was mean to a lot of people. I saw a lot of that.”

  But Tommy couldn’t restrain himself that night at the airport.

  “You scared Mama and Daddy half to death and you’re high and you’re out of your mind!” he shouted.

  Cash responded by sucker-punching his brother in the face, knocking him to the ground.

  “I got up, and I was in real good physical condition,” Tommy adds, “because I was always a good athlete. Daddy stepped in between us and said, ‘Boys you shouldn’t fight in front of your mother.’ The next day John was all apologetic, and I accepted his apology. He gave me one of his prized Indian head coins. But it showed why we were all scared to death about what was going to happen to him and what the drugs did to him.”

  Two days after the anniversary gathering, Cash was in the studio with June working on the duet album.

  Cash didn’t spend night after night trying to choose the right songs for the package, as he had done with the concept albums. He already had three numbers: “Jackson,” “Long-Legged,” and “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” Beyond that, he and June were open to suggestions. Someone brought up Ray Charles, and Cash thought it’d be fun to do some of the songs that Charles had recorded before he made his foray into the country field in the 1960s with heavily orchestrated versions of hits such as “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Crying Time.” That led to John and June teaming up on “I Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say.” Charles may have had an affinity for country music, but John and June showed little feel for R&B. The rest of the album was a sort of family affair—and it wasn’t very good. Even Cash realized he needed fresh ideas. It was time for this fellow Johnston.

  As soon as Cash bought the new house, he started lobbying Vivian to let the girls spend some time with him—and she finally relented that summer.

  To have time at home with the girls, Cash limited his touring during those six weeks in 1967 to fewer than a half-dozen shows. The house still wasn’t finished when the girls arrived; the only furniture was a dining room table, a bed, and a few chairs. He bought a twin bed for each of the girls and placed them head to head in a cross shape in the center of the house’s large second bedroom. Rosanne was now twelve, Kathy eleven, and Cindy and Tara turning eight and six, respectively.

  “It was so cute, because the headboards all came together so that we could talk at night and feel so close,” Kathy remembers. “Mom, of course, was worried. I’d call at least once a week to let her know we missed her but we were fine—and we were fine; we had a blast. He was so much fun, and we’d all laugh so much. Those summers in Hendersonville were some of the best times of my life.”

  One of her favorite memories was of Cash teaching them to water-ski.

  “I mean, you’re talking about four girls in the boat at once and trying to teach all four of us, and he did a great job,” she says. “He also taught us all how to drive and how to cast a fishing pole. It had been so long since Dad had any real time with us, and it seemed like he was trying to cram everything he ever wanted to do into that summer.”

  Though Cash was still deep into pills, he seemed more upbeat and loving than he had in years. “He was still very shaky and gaunt, but you got the sense he was trying to get better,” Rosanne recalls. “I could see him trying. I don’t think my mom was being mean by not letting us visit him earlier. She always encouraged us to have a relationship with our father. She was a strong woman. She was just worried about how he’d be. She sent him a laundry list of things he had to follow. One of them was to take us to mass every Sunday, and he did.”

  Cash’s oldest daughter also remembers how he would pick peaches and wild blackberries from his orchard and make ice cream, lighting firecrackers to kill the time while he was cranking the ice-cream churn. He’d also take the girls to the movies, sometimes three a day, and rent a
local roller rink so they and other family members could have the place to themselves.

  June and her daughters were frequent visitors at the house that first summer, but they went home in the evenings; John and June still weren’t admitting to anyone, especially Cash’s daughters, that they had been sleeping together for years. The California girls had no idea they were meeting their future stepmother and stepsisters. Meanwhile, June’s girls had been accumulating stories about Cash’s odd behavior well before he married their mother, since he was a frequent guest at June’s house in Madison and at their grandparents’ house.

  “We’d wake up and find the kitchen was on fire because he had done something wrong while making breakfast, or he’d show up without his key and take an axe to the front door,” Carlene says. “Mama wasn’t scared of him, but she was scared for him. The marriage only happened because he made a change.”

  III

  A gruff but quick-thinking maverick, Bob Johnston was born in Hillsboro, Texas, in 1932, which made him the same age as Cash. His father was a chiropractor and his mother, Diane Johnston, was a songwriter whose tunes were recorded by Gene Autry and Asleep at the Wheel. After a tour in the Navy, Bob recorded a few rockabilly-type songs under the name Don Johnston, but nothing much happened, and he turned to producing.

  After a brief stay at Kapp Records, he found his way to Columbia Records in the mid-sixties where, thanks to a combination of talent and fast talking, he got to work with Dylan on the Highway 61 Revisited album and with Simon & Garfunkel on their breakthrough collection Sounds of Silence. It was an extraordinary one-two punch that landed him the Nashville job.