Johnny Cash: The Biography - Hardcover

Michael Streissguth is the author of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, editor of Ring of Fire, and an associate professor of English at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

Country music historian Streissguth's biography is admirably thorough. Besides the drug-crazed demon Cash too often became on the road--and he was on the road as much as possible until disease and decrepitude disabled him in the 1990s; one of his daughters recalls that after more than three or four days at home, he would be beside himself with restlessness--Streissguth portrays a craftsmanly performer concerned with what his music expressed. Cash was an advocate for the poor and oppressed, a patriot of pioneer America, and a committed Evangelical Christian. Accordingly, he sang about dirt farmers (his own family background), prisoners, outlaws bad and good, and salvation in Jesus Christ. He opened himself to the influence of other performers, most notably Bob Dylan, whom the country music business in general distrusted, to expand not only his repertoire but also the audience for his messages. He succeeded in grabbing new listeners for all but his Christianity, and the poor reception of his record-album and film The Gospel Road keenly disappointed him (Streissguth implies that it is one of Cash's best personal achievements). Streissguth leaves us mightily impressed with the volume of Cash's work and the convictions that animate it, and perhaps even more impressed by Cash's endurance of his own self-destructiveness. Streissguth essays no psychological or sociological explanations for Cash's behavior, which is perhaps just as well. Despite many poor word choices, slips into publicity-speak, and a tendency to glorify too much of Cash's music, Streissguth gives everyone interested in Cash a very satisfying book about him. Ray Olson
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