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Thursday, August 28, 2003
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 NOTES ON JOHNNY CASH
As I was going on my daily stroll through the world's newspapers this evening, I found this in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. To think that 71-year old Johnny Cash is being celebrated tonight at the MTV Awards in New York with Justin Timberlake and Missy Elliott is both heart warming and tragic. Heart warming because is it gives Cash a level of mainstream acceptence that he never enjoyed. Johnny Cash is a legend in country music circles and with students of attitude, like me. To be taken to the bossom of the MTV demographic at this late stage in his career is a nice thing to see.
The tragedy is that Johnny Cash is so much better than anyone else on that stage. And has been for far longer than anyone else there has even been alive. It would have been far better to honour the Man in Black 10 years ago when the first "American Recordings" albumn came out.Cash is recently widowed and his health is ravaged by a central nervous system disorder. As of this writing, one hour before show time, it remains an open question if he will even be able to appear. As nice as this victory is, it would've been far nicer to see a healthy and happy Johnny Cash enjoy it.
For nearly 50 years, Johnny Cash has been amoung the most dangerous voices in popular music. You think these rap guys are scary? Johnny once "shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die." The body count on your average Johnny Cash record would send 50 Cent right into the Witness Protection Program. And don't start me on those metal idiots, like Metallica or Limp Bizcut. Even today, at 71, Cash would just have to look at those retards the wrong way and their "street cred" would be running down their pant legs.
Johnny Cash shares a place in the pantheon of the greats with people like Keith Richards, Hank Williams, the Sex Pistols, the original Guns N' Roses lineup and Nirvana.This is a group of people who are "mad, bad and dangerous to know." If you don't like Johnny Cash, you're wrong.
They don't make them like Johnny Cash anymore. And that's really too bad.
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