Johnny Cash
J.R. Cash was born in Cleveland County,Arkansas on February 26, 1932. Cash would later take on the name John at the insistence of an Air Force recruiter who would not accept only initials (J.R. was supposedly a compromise between his parents who could not agree on a name), though Sun Records founder Sam Phillips is frequently credited with adapting it to “Johnny.”
His young life was marred by tragedy when his older brother, Jack, whom Cash admired died in an industrial accident while sawing wood when Johnny was 12. According to Cash’s sister, he helped dig his brother’s grave on the morning of the funeral and stood through the service covered in dirt. Cash was said to have never been entirely the same after the incident.
In 1950, Cash graduated from high school, taking on a number of short term jobs before ultimately joining the Air Force. Shortly before he shipped out to Germany in 1951, he met Vivian Liberto at a roller rink in San Antonio, setting off a whirlwind romance. Throughout Cash’s service, the two exchanged an enormous volume of letters, and when he returned to the States in 1954, they married. Together they would go on to have four daughters; Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara.
The newlyweds moved to Memphis where Cash briefly sold appliances before his brother Roy introduced him to guitarists Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, who would go on to become Cash’s backup players as the Tennessee Two.
After introducing himself to Phillips in 1955, Cash played one of his original songs, “Hey Porter,” which interested the producer enough that he asked to write a sad song to pair with it. The aspiring songwriter reportedly went home and wrote the song “Cry, Cry, Cry,” in 15 minutes. It was recorded in May and issued with “Porter”; the start of Cash’s road to fame.
