Titles

Johnny Cash: The Biography

Michael Streissguth
Da Capo Press
September 30, 2006
ISBN: 0306813688

To millions, he was the rebellious man in black, the unabashed patriot, the redeemed Christian, the king of country music. Yet Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was also an uncertain country boy whose dreams carried him from the cotton fields of Mississippi to the vanguard of popular music, all the while struggling with the all-too-real pain of a guilt-ridden childhood, chemical addictions, and self-doubt.

Johnny Cash: The Biography—the first American independent, critical biography of Cash in thirty-five years—will delve into oft-overlooked moments in his life and career: the tragic death of his older brother Jack; his Air Force career (1950-1954), when his songwriting took form and he purchased his first guitar; the origins of the boom-chicka-boom rhythm; his drug dependency, which is generally thought to have disappeared in the 1960s yet actually continued to plague him privately for the rest of his life; the deep love he shared with his second wife June Carter Cash; and his relationship with the young producer Rick Rubin, which revitalized his career yet raised numerous contradictions about Cash’s values and craft.

Insightful, thorough, and profound, Johnny Cash: The Biography is the truest portrait yet to emerge of this American icon.

Author Bio

Michael Streissguth is the author of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the editor of Ring of Fire: The Johnny Cash Reader, and the author of Eddy Arnold: Pioneer of the Nashville Sound and Like A Moth to a Flame: The Jim Reeves Story. His work has appeared in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Encyclopedia of Country Music and the Museum of Broadcast Communication’s Encyclopedia of Radio. Streissguth contributes regularly to the Journal of Country Music, Country Music Magazine, and other publications. He is an assistant professor in the English Department of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.