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Walking in Johnny Cash's footsteps
Sometimes research can be thrilling. For my upcoming book Hello, I'm Johnny Cash, I flew up to attend what would have been the Man in Black's 80th birthday party, held in his tiny boyhood town of Dyess, AK, a New Deal farming community. In attendance were about 100 of Johnny's relatives including his brother Tommy, sister Joanne, daughters Rosanne, Kathy, and Cindy, and son John Carter. Everyone else seemed to be from this tiny town of 400. Rosanne sang, John Carter sang, Tommy and Joanne too, capped with a couple of rousing Johnny Cash songs sung by the whole extended family group. Joanne played her mother's original piano that was in their childhood home, which is now being restored to it former glory as a heritage museum spot. It was incredibly precious and unique and I felt privileged to even be there.
But that was only part of it. The rest of the weekend I spent walking in Johnny's footsteps throughout Memphis and Dyess. It was an amazing experience to stand behind his desolate childhood home, with its endless horizons, the winds howling all around and not a soul in sight as far as the eye could see. I stood in the isolated country cemetery where he helped bury his brother and best friend Jack, at age 12. I walked that long endless road to town where nights were pitch black and filled with the sounds of wild panthers.
I visited the spot where he first met Elvis. I held the actual microphone at Sun Records that he sang into for his first recordings, from Hey Porter, Folsom Prison Blues and I Walk the Line.
Stood on the park stage shell where he sang his first big show in front of his family and friends as he opened for Elvis. Visited the building where he first met mechanics Luther and Marshall, who became his band, the Tennessee Two. Saw the house Rosanne was raised in, the appliance shop where he held his first job, the church where he sang in public for the first time, the high school where he saw his first live concert and decided that was the life for him. Plus, I spotted evidence of Ray Liotta at Graceland.
Throw in the astonishing National Civil Rights Museum, which incorporates the motel where MLK was killed and the assassin's flophouse shooter's spot (with all the evidence from that day in tact) and it was an unforgettable weekend.
To top it off, I was able to stay with my friend Susanne who I hadn't seen in 30 years! It was an awe inspiring time and while much of the places (and us) had changed, much was exactly the way it was, just older. Like me.
