Johnny Cash was as down-home as they come. Born in a shack in Arkansas to a family of farmers and living most of his life in the vicinity of Nashville, he sang about venerable country subjects like trains, work, cowboys, jail, temptations, guitars and God. But what made him an American icon were the ways he was like no country singer before or since. Long before M.B.A.'s began advising pop acts about branding, Mr. Cash set out to make himself a symbol.
His wardrobe as the Man in Black -- for perpetual mourning and perpetual sympathy with humanity's suffering -- was just the most visible sign of a deep and consistent gravity. He started his career as a rockabilly singer in Memphis, where country reaffirmed its connection to the blues, and in the hundreds of songs he recorded, he was never far away from an awareness of tragedy and death. Of course he was an entertainer, too; he even had his own television variety show.
He was no stranger to the Nashville system that has long turned out professional, increasingly homogenized country hits. But while good country singers have been content within that system, the great ones have defied it, and Mr. Cash, who died yesterday in Nashville at 71, was among the mavericks. His allies through the years have included Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kris Kristofferson and U2. Eventually he found old country values in places most country singers never thought to look.
Older American rural music spoke directly of hard times and mortality. Songs about romance and honky-tonking were always around, but they were the Saturday-night respite from rugged lives.
Mr. Cash's music didn't flaunt its rural roots; he never allied himself with bluegrass revivals, new traditionalism or any other overt throwbacks. His trademark arrangements, with his steady-picked guitar and the marchlike beat of his longtime backup group, the Tennessee Two, were more like sobered-up rockabilly than anything else. But the songs he chose throughout his career stayed close to the hardscrabble perspective of the music he grew up hearing.
When he selected a three-CD compilation of his own songs in 2000, it was called ''Love God Murder'' (Sony), with one topic per disc.
In his long career, Mr. Cash wasn't always downhearted. Among his biggest pop hits were ''A Boy Named Sue,'' which neatly played against his long catalog of songs about manly exploits, and ''Jackson,'' a cheerfully bickering duet with his future wife, June Carter.
But in recent decades, country music has traded confrontations with the abyss for mild flirtations and clever wordplay. And when country got cute, Mr. Cash turned his back on it. He had always had rockers among his fans. They saw in Mr. Cash a fellow outsider and, in his later years, a connection to the defiant spirit of early rock 'n' roll. They respected the unsentimental bluntness of songs like ''I Walk the Line'' and the terse narratives of songs like ''Folsom Prison Blues,'' in which he plays a murderer.
Many of his songs contemplated the darkest, most violent human impulses with realism and remorse, and in them the struggle against sin was never an easy one. He sought relief in gospel songs and patriotic songs, which spelled out the moral code that his characters found so difficult to keep. In his last decade, on a string of albums that began with ''American Recordings'' in 1994, Mr. Cash found songs he wanted to sing among the bleakest rock.
The country mainstream had long ignored him; he once said that he had been ''purged'' from Nashville. But on those final albums, he completed his self-invention as a rock-ribbed avatar of tragedy.
Genre mattered less to Mr. Cash than ever. He sang alone with an acoustic guitar, like a porch side picker, and he sang backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (on ''Unchained'' in 1996, which won a Grammy award as Best Country Album). His voice, deeper and more scarred than ever, brought an adult's sorrow to the grunge defiance of Soundgarden's ''Rusty Cage'' and to the bitterness of Nine Inch Nails' ''Hurt.''
The last face Mr. Cash showed the public was the creased, gray, weary close-up in the video clip for ''Hurt.'' It was the face of a man who knew he was mortally ill, with all vanity gone. In the liner notes to ''Unchained,'' Mr. Cash wrote: ''I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.'' Mr. Cash knew himself well, and he did not flinch.
As any fan of the man will attest, Johnny Cash was brutally honest, both in his songwriting and the way he lived his life. This fact is easy to see in this handwritten note that was auctioned off over the weekend by Julien's of Beverly Hills for a cool $6,400.
Cash scrawls a to-do list for the day: not smoke, kiss June, not kiss
anyone else, cough, pee, eat, not eat too much, worry, go see Mama, and practice piano. Under the "Notes" section, the Man In Black slyly adds "not write notes." There's no date given, but these are all pretty timeless things to do.
The Wake
HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 15— Johnny Cash, country music's Man in Black, was laid to rest in a jet-black coffin today, exactly four months after the death of his wife, June Carter Cash.
In a two-hour private ceremony that was closed to the general public and television cameras at Mr. Cash's own church, the First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, preachers, country stars, family members and former Vice President Al Gore paid tribute to Mr.
Cash's music and legacy in word and song.
A public memorial service is planned for sometime later this week. Mr. Cash, who died on Friday in Nashville at 71, was depicted today as a man of genius but also of many contradictions, of unending compassion and of tremendous Christian faith.
''Johnny Cash was the champion of the voiceless, the underdogs and the downtrodden. He was also something of a holy terror, like Abraham Lincoln with a wild side,'' said the singer, songwriter and actor Kris Kristofferson. ''He represented the best of America.''
At one point the microphone Mr. Kristofferson was speaking in cut out and then fed back. ''Johnny, I know that was you,'' Mr. Kristofferson said with a grin, pointing to the heavens.
''I wasn't Johnny Cash's closest friend, but I can speak for millions he made feel like he was their closest friend,'' Mr. Gore said. ''At long last, he is far from Folsom Prison, where he wants to stay.''
The Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, at whose revival meetings Mr. Cash and his wife often performed, was unable to attend because he was in the Mayo Clinic, but he sent a message that was read by his son, Dr. Franklin Graham.
''Johnny was a legend. He was also a good man who struggled. He was also a deeply religious man,'' the elder Dr. Graham's message said. ''I look forward to seeing Johnny and June in heaven one day.''
A video tribute included Mr. Cash's duets with Bob Dylan in Nashville, and even a hilarious television clip of him introducing Elton John while wearing bizarre glasses and a feathered outfit that Mr. John might have worn himself. At several points during the service, the congregation applauded and laughed.
Mr. Kristofferson, Sheryl Crow and Emmylou Harris all performed songs for the several hundred invited guests, which included family, music industry colleagues and reporters. Willie Nelson was one of the honorary pallbearers.
''Johnny Cash was the most dynamic person I've ever met,'' said his longtime manager, Lou Robin. Mr. Cash's daughter Rosanne said, ''He was the stuff of dreams.''
There Was a Time
ACVDN
Johnny Cash knows that dignity makes the icon. Through a recording career that stretches back to 1955, his bass-baritone voice has gone from gravelly to grave; his demeanor has grown ever more somber and humble. But even in the 1950's, he was perfectly believable singing a line like "I taught the weeping willow how to cry." At Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night, he sang with stoic calm about death, loneliness, love and Christian faith.
Mr. Cash has grown increasingly distant from the country-music business, which likes its singers young, optimistic and aw-shucks sexy. Mr. Cash's songs don't provide the cozy consolation of most country hits; they are more likely to tell stories of hardship and irrevocable loss. In "Oh Bury Me Not," the narrator recites a prayer that he will live up to the virtues of the wide-open country. The music then segues into the old song in which a dying young cowboy begs not to be buried on "the lone prairie," but he is buried there anyway.
In Mr. Cash's repertory, characters face unforgiving elements and
indifferent fate; their faith and virtue will not necessarily be rewarded in this world. Even love songs, like "I Walk the Line" and "Ring of Fire," are about the dangers of temptation and the singer's stubborn resolve in fighting it off.
Mr. Cash is closer, now, to rock tastes for unflinching lyrics and
stripped-down music. This year, he changed recording companies and released "American Recordings" (American), backing himself on an acoustic guitar. At Carnegie Hall, he performed alone and with the Tennessee Three, one of the leanest bands anywhere.
The Tennessee Three hark back to the rockabilly groups that backed Mr. Cash's first singles, with a few decades of subtlety added. While Dave Rorick slapped a bass fiddle, each of Bob Wootton's electric-guitar lines was pared down to essentials. W. S. Holland's drumming sounded like hoofbeats during "Ghost Riders in the Sky," a military tattoo in "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" and a steam locomotive in "Orange Blossom Special," in which Mr. Cash needed two harmonicas to play three chords.
Alone or with the band, Mr. Cash gave his songs an austere directness. He ignored the hoots and whoops that punctuated his songs at odd moments, maintaining a conversational directness and a courtly reserve. Mr. Cash never revealed the control behind his steely but unforced delivery; only an occasional dive into his deepest register showed that his tone is a matter of choice. By never overacting, Mr. Cash gives the impression that the song
is speaking for itself; his determined simplicity honored songs like
Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire," Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" and his own "Redemption," a stark meditation on the blood of Jesus.
The concert also included cameo appearances by Mr. Cash's daughter, Roseanne Cash, and his wife, June Carter. His daughter was self-effacing; his wife was extroverted, full of raspy inflections, hip swinging and arm flinging as they sang duets. Her antics set off his formality, making him seem like a loner even within his family.
That Dog, a quartet from Los Angeles, opened the concert with quiet, self-absorbed songs. The group's three women harmonized prettily on dorm-room reveries, most of which were too wispy for a concert hall.
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