JOHNNY CASH: THE APOSTLE OF THE UPROOTED - FEBRUARY 26, 1932

Johnny Cash has Big River blues in his voice . . . and the sound of the prairie wind. On his guitar, he plays "an old standard country beat with the rhythm accented and intensified." But, in this, his listeners find the drive of America on the go ... to work, to war, to love—and, sometimes, just to go. His song titles, too, carry the theme: "I Walk the Line," "There You Go," "Next in Line," "Train of Love," "So Doggone Lonesome," "Don't Make Me Go." Intense, talented Johnny has a right to be the apostle of the uprooted.

Kingsland, Arkansas, was grim, heartbreaking country when Johnny was born February 26, 1932. With the aid of a rehabilitation program, the family moved to forty acres near Dyess. They found no fortune, but they always sang. At 18, he enlisted in the Air Force and met his girl "sixteen nights before I was sent to Germany for three years." Upon his return, they were married. In Memphis, Johnny tried to sell home appliances. He was "doing very bad" when he went over to Sun Records, around the corner from Beale Street, to ask Sam Phillips (the man who discovered Elvis Presley) for an audition. Sam, unimpressed by Johnny's hymn singing, suggested he try writing his own songs—he had had some poems published in Stars and Stripes. Johnny produced "Cry, Cry, Cry," and "Hey, Porter." His friends, Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, backed him on guitar and bass. Today, the three are in demand for TV and personal appearances. A song evolves by lonely stages for Johnny Out on the road with a show, he gets homesick. Scraps of words and bits of music "come into my head. Then, when I get home, I fish maybe forty, fifty scraps of paper—my notes—out of my pockets and go to work. Then maybe I get a tune."

Many a young hopeful follows the same song-writing formula. Touring rock 'n' roll and hillbilly shows give the boys a chance to try out their tunes before an audience of their own age. If a little studio then cuts a few discs and the tune takes off, both singer and studio are on their way to a fortune. That's the individual side of it—startling, exciting, life-changing for the lucky ones. The collective effect is overpowering. About 150 new recordings—300 songs —are being released each week. If the kids like the tune, it's made, whatever its label. Trade publications such asVariety, Billboard and The Cash Box call it an unprecedented "grass-roots movement," a musical revolution in which the kid next door has almost as much chance for a hit as the professional tunesmith or big-name singer. The field's wide open. Anyone can win —if he has the talent and personality that speak to America's teenagers in rhythms which pulse with their own heartbeat.

TV Radio Mirror
August 1957-