Cash and Carter met at the Grand Ole Opry
In July 1956, Johnny Cash made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage. He had recently released the song “I Walk the Line” which had become a then-rare crossover hit with fans of both pop and country. Singer Carl Smith welcomed Cash to the show, but it was a backstage introduction that would make the biggest impact on Cash—one to Smith’s wife, June Carter.
“I’ve always wanted to meet you,” Cash, who had grown up listening to June perform with her family, reportedly told her.
Carter, fresh off a tour with Cash’s friend and contemporary Elvis Presley, supposedly responded, “I feel like I know you already.”
“I can’t remember anything else we talked about, except his eyes,” June Carter wrote in the notes on Cash’s 2000 box set, Love, God, Murder. “Those black eyes that shone like agates… He had a command of his performance that I had never before. Just a guitar and a bass and a gentle kind of presence that made not only me, but whole audiences become his followers.”