Johnny Cash: Fade to Black

Last night, I dreamed of Johnny Cash.  He was sitting at the edge of my bed with a guitar, strumming and humming no tune in particular.  Then he stopped, looked at me and said, “You got to play, son.”  I woke with a start.

I remember when Cash died in September, 2003.  It was strange that it hit me so hard.  He had, after all, been ill for quite some time.  I remember him being diagnosed with Shy-Drager Syndrome, a mysterious, degenerative nervous ailment.  That turned out to have been a misdiagnosis, though he was still plagued with diabetes, and bouts of pneumonia which hospitalized him for long stretches.  And, of course, the massive drug and alcohol abuse which characterized his early life had taken their toll as Johnny slid from middle into old age.

In the spring of 2003, his wife of over three decades, June Carter Cash (who wrote his most famous song, Ring Of Fire about their tempestuous romance) passed from the earth, leaving Johnny without his best friend and closest companion.  It is a cliched truism that, when one lifelong partner dies, the other often follows in rapid succession.  When two hearts beat together for so long, they can no longer beat independently, and so it proved for Mr. and Mrs. Cash.

I was raised in rural Colorado, with naught but country music to grace my ears through my early youth.  I detested it so, the sad sameness of it all, the poverty of its vision.  Country musicians made music seem so small.  Then I heard Johnny. (more…)