Johnny Cash: The Autobiography - Softcover

Johnny Cash

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061013579 ISBN 13: 9780061013577

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

Straightforward, humorous, and packed with wisdom, an intimate portrait by the legendary country music idol details his stormy past, rise to success, future plans, struggles and victories, closest friends including Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan, and the major influences and people that have molded his life. Reissue.

About this title

About the Author:

Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was an American icon and country music superstar, a professed man of faith, as well as the author of three books. Cash first sang publicly while in the air force in the early fifties. The youngest person ever chosen for the Country Music Hall of Fame, he was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and awarded eleven Grammies in a career that spanned generations. Married to country legend June Carter, Cash performed everywhere from Folsom Prison to the White House, hosted his own television show, appeared in feature films, and in 1996 received the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A humble, happy look back from the man in black. Johnny Cash answers to many names; he's JR to childhood friends and family, John to bandmates, and Johnny to fans. ``Cash'' is the name wife June Carter reserves for ``the star, the egomaniac.'' The star gets plenty of ink here, from the early days at Sun Records--with Elvis, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis--to his current status as a darling of the alternative rock set. But it's the private man who's most compelling and surprisingly complex. Cash writes candidly of his recurring addiction to amphetamines and his concomitant shortcomings as a father, addresses his spirituality without sounding maudlin, and displays genuine humility at his success and very little bitterness at his abandonment by the country music establishment. A more accurate subtitle might be ``The Second Autobiography,'' since this volume covers some of the same ground as Cash's previous work, The Man in Black (1986), but a life so chock full of oddments (he once started a forest fire with an automobile and on another occasion was nearly disemboweled by an ostrich) and renegade stands (he opposed Vietnam, heresy to the nation's blue- collar constituency) easily merits a second look. Organized around the domiciles where he divides his time--homes in Tennessee, Florida, and Jamaica, as well as his tour bus--the book stays grounded in the present, mixing reflections on his 40-year career with a running chronicle of an ongoing tour. This novel approach minimizes the as-told-to blahs that plague many a celebrity autobiography and highlights Cash's wry humor and introspection. With the help of Carr, editor of Country Music magazine, Cash keeps the pace lively until the end, when the roses he throws everyone from grandkids to music biz buddies bog things down. Mostly, though, a pungent, substantive autobiography from one the most iconoclastic talents on the American music scene. (32 pages b&w photos, not seen) ($200,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0061013579
• ISBN 13: 9780061013577
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 433