Johnny Cash

The Life

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Johnny Cash

By: Robert Hilburn

Narrated by: Charles Pittard

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Summary

People don't just listen to Johnny Cash: they believe in him. But no one has told the Man in Black's full story, until now.

In Johnny Cash: The Life, Robert Hilburn conveys the unvarnished truth about a musical icon, whose colourful career stretched from his days at Sun Records with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to his remarkable, brave and deeply moving 'Hurt' video, aged sixty-nine. As music critic for the Los Angeles Times, Hilburn knew Cash well throughout his life: he was the only music journalist at the legendary Folsom Prison concert in 1968, and he interviewed Cash and his wife June Carter for the final time just months before their deaths in 2003. Hilburn's rich reporting shows the remarkable highs and deep lows that followed and haunted Cash in equal measure. A man of great faith and humbling addiction, Cash aimed for more than another hit for the jukebox; he wanted his music to lift people's spirits.

Drawing upon his personal experience with Cash and a trove of never-before-seen material from the singer's inner circle, Hilburn creates an utterly compelling, deeply human portrait of one of the most iconic figures in modern popular culture - not only a towering figure in country music, but also a seminal influence in rock, whose personal life was far more troubled, and whose musical and lyrical artistry much more profound, than even his most devoted fans ever realised.

Read by Charles Pittard

(p) 2013 Hachette Audio©2013 Robert Hilburn

Robert HilburnCharles PittardWeidenfeld & Nicolson

Entertainment & Celebrities

Music

Celebrity

Thought-Provoking

Entertainment & Celebrities Music Celebrity Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

Johnny Cash was a man both extraordinary and ordinary. Every man could relate to him, no man could be him, and only one man could get inside his head: Robert Hilburn (Bono)

Robert Hilburn displays a deeply felt affinity with his subject, illuminating Johnny Cash as the moral compass of country music (Patti Smith)

A great story requires great storytelling, and that's exactly what it receives here. Ultimately, Robert Hilburn's biography uncannily resembles its subject: massive and stolid, but with a dangerous glint in its eye (Charles Shaar Murray)

Johnny Cash and Robert Hilburn are two of the true blessings of my life. Both the best at what they do and each a gifted artist. It's a killer combination (Kris Kristofferson)

[T]he most authoritative and revealing portrait to date of the most chronicled figure in country-music history ... [a] finely wrought biography (Eddie Dean)

Hilburn's biography has the sort of immense scope and tremendous insight that comes from years of interviewing such a truthful, troubling subject (Rob Fitzpatrick)

A warts-and-all biography follows Johnny Cash, a rebel and outsider, from one drama to the next. It's a must-read (Will Hodgkinson)

Rock biographies can feel like they are ten-a-penny so it is a refreshing change to read a meaty no-holds barred, non-sycophantic record of legendary Man in Black Johnny Cash ... The wealth of detail on every page, in ever incident of Cash's life (1932-2002) is both impressive and a joy to read. Unlike so many biographies that are reported incidents jigsawed together, this is almost an eyewitness account with not always favourable opinions, perfecting its colour and gravitas (Nicole Carmichael)

How do you write an interesting biography of such a beloved figure? First, hire Robert Hilburn. He is a prodigious researcher, but keeps a steady hand on the tiller, and never allows his research to swamp his narrative. He knows his music and music history, but unlike far too many music critics, he avoids the temptation to show off

Hilburn has pulled off the rare feat of making the dispassionate truth more extraordinary than the myth (Andy Fyfe)

With straightforward prose, and through years of meticulous research, Robert Hilburn unravels the sometimes dark and magical life of one of music's greatest legends. Oftentimes this is a chronicle of pain, whether Hilburn is detailing Cash's early loss of his beloved brother, or the anguish he talked to Rick Rubin about feeling upon the death of wife June, but Hilburn gives much insight into what drove Cash's work. This is a harrowing story of addiction, musical genius, and enduring faith that goes far deeper than any film biopic ever will. In the end, Hilburn has achieved what is most certainly the definitive Johnny Cash biography (Charles R. Cross, author of Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain)

Robert Hilburn has written a magnificent biography

Most relevant

First of all, if you've watched 'Walk the Line' (the 2005 Hollywood film of Johnny Cash's life) - that's the fairy story narrative of this man's life.

A generation of people will understand that Johnny Cash's life was basically a story of how he married young, to the wrong woman, Vivian. She resented his music and gave him a hard a time. He hit the drugs to keep going on the road and found the affections of June Carter - who he fell in love with. He divorced Vivian, and June understood him and saved him from his demons, which included drugs and the bitter memories of losing his brother as a child, and his equally bitter relationship with his father.

Ok - park that story there. Not only is it incredibly unfair on Vivian Cash, it's also incredibly indulgent on Johnny Cash. It also paints June as a saintly figure - and she was far from that in the way she went after the married Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash was a bad man. Make no mistakes about it. He was wild. There were more women in his life than just Vivian and June. The film doesn't really look at his temper, his violence, his drugs, his missed tour dates (at one point he was missing more bookings than he turned up for). Somehow his incredible talent pulled him through both professionally and personally.

You have to read/listen to this book because the full story, the anecdotes, the legends are as incredible as they are true - and Robert Hilburn is unflinching in his determination to tell the fact from the fiction.

Johnny Cash is a great human being. He experienced the hell of surviving all his personal, emotional and psychological wrong doings and he distilled them to become bitter sweet dark dark chocolate sound of his country, rockabilly, folk and pop music. He was a champion for the underdog, he was resolutely non-judgemental of others, and he walked a line that few others could ever have survived.

Quite incredible man, and all credit to Robert Hilburn, quite an incredible account of it all.