Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash is widely considered the greatest country singer of all time. His songs are always recognizable, thanks to his dark brown baritone, understated backing, and unadorned lyrics. His career spanned five decades, passing through high peaks and deep valleys. In the years before his death in 2003, he experienced a spectacular artistic rebirth, thanks to producer Rick Rubin and the American Recordings series.

As a young singer, Johnny Cash made his first records at Sun, Sam Phillips's studio and record company in Memphis. This label launched the careers of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley, among others. He scored his first hits there with "Hey Porter," "Cry! Cry! Cry!", "Folsom Prison Blues," and "I Walk the Line." Like his colleagues, Johnny Cash moved to a larger record label—in his case, Columbia Records. He remained a wildly popular country singer throughout the 1960s, but drug, alcohol, and relationship problems led to turmoil in his life. At the end of the decade, Johnny Cash made two iconic live albums, "At Folsom Prison" (1968) and "At San Quentin" (1969), recorded in notorious American prisons. Around this time, he launched the Johnny Cash Show, a popular music program where he performed with Bob Dylan, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, Ray Charles, James Taylor, and Joni Mitchell, among others.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he continued to record and tour tirelessly—always with his wife, June Carter, at his side. However, his popularity steadily declined. In the early 1990s, producer and label owner Rick Rubin brought redemption. He persuaded Johnny Cash to record stripped-down versions of his own and other artists' compositions, often with surprising cover choices. Thanks to the understated accompaniment, Johnny Cash's soulful voice possesses unprecedented expressiveness in songs like "Delia's Gone," "The Beast in Me" (Nick Lowe), "Thirteen" (Glenn Danzig), and "Bird on a Wire" (Leonard Cohen), which appeared on the album "American Recordings" (1994). The album received unanimous euphoric reviews, hailed as a spectacular rebirth. On the subsequent installments of "American Recordings," Johnny Cash once again impressed with his surprising interpretations of songs by artists like Beck, Soundgarden, and Tom Petty. He scored a hit with the definitive version of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," thanks in part to the haunting video. When Johnny Cash died in 2003, his status as the greatest country singer of all time was forever secured.