Drug Abuse In Johnny Cash, The Man In Black

Johnny Cash, The Man in Black, the famous singer/songwriter and guitarist. All of his run ins with the law and struggles with drug abuse in his early career helped him establish his “outlaw” image. His music influences the world. This wonderful person was brought to this earth on February 26,1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas. As a son of the poor Southern Baptist sharecroppers, Cash was one of seven kids born to Ray and Carrie Rivers Cash.

Cash was three years old when he and his family moved to Dyess Colony in Northeast Arkansas. His father took advantage of the Roosevelt farm program in order to get his family to Dyess. The Cash family moved into a five bedroom house and farmed twenty acres of cotton and other crops. For the next fifteen years

He set off to Detroit as a young man in search for a job. He ended up working at an automotive plant in Pontiac, Michigan. He didn't live there for long until he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He met his first wife (Vivian Liberto) while at basic training.

Johnny Cash was discharged in 1954, he returned to stateside and married his first wife. He and his wife moved to Memphis where cash worked a variety of jobs. While in Memphis, Johnny Cash met a bass player and a guitarist( Marshall Grant and Luther Perkins). They did form a band and were very soon hired to perform once a week on a radio station. Cash toured mostly in the tri state area of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. He often toured with other artist like Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins. Cash ended up quitting his part time job as an appliance salesman and pursued his music

The year of 1954 Johnny auditioned as a solo artist for an artist named Sam Phillips’ sun records. There he recorded gospel music for the label. Immediately after that Phillips ditched that idea and by the spring Cash was in the Sun Studios to record with his band The Tennessee Three. Kernodle bailed on Cash’s first release, Hey Porter, which failed to chart. His next song released, Cry Cry Cry, managed to make it to number fourteen on Billboard's top twenty. His music soon made it to the top ten. For example, Cash’s fourth charted single, I Walk The Line, hit Billboard's number one position and stayed there for a total of forty three weeks and selling over two million copies. He had a shock when he noticed that a longtime dream was ahead of him when he was invited to perform on the Grand Ole Opry. By the year of 1957 he was working more than 200 dates a