Songs of the West were deeply embedded in the recordings of Johnny Cah. He recorded concept songs about Indians, the diversity of the West, and one of the biggest hits of his career “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” was a Western morality tale. He sang the theme song for the TV show “Johnny Yuma,” the theme for the movie “The Sons of Katie Elder,” and appeared with Kirk Douglas in a Western titled “A Gunfight.”

Johnny Cash grew up in Dyess, Arkansas. On Saturdays he loved going to town and watching the “B” Westerns; one of his first heroes was Gene Autry. Cash first recorded for Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1958, he joined Columbia Records, and his second single, Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” tells the story of a young man between gras and hay who strapped on some guns and headed to town even though his mother warned him against doing it. The young man thought he could handle any situation, but the inevitable happened: he got into an argument with an experienced gunslinger and was shot down. That song was number one on the country chart for six consecutive weeks in 1959 and crossed over to the pop chart.

The widespread interest in cowboys during the late 1950s and early 1960s spurred Cash’s interest in Indians as the Old West was re-examined through a number of movies. Cash wrote and recorded “Old Apache Squaw” and recorded four songs by Peter LaFarge: “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” “Custer,” “Drums,” and “White Girl” for his album Bitter Tears. Other songs on that concept album were “The Vanishing Race,” “Big Foot,” “The Talking Leaves,” and “Apache Tears.”

Johnny Cash’s interest in the West and cowboys led to a double album of cowboy songs Johnny Cash Sings the Ballads of the True West, that he recorded in March of 1965. This album includes a number of old cowboy classics such as “The Streets of Laredo,” “I Ride An Old Paint,” “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” and “Green Grow the Lilacs” as well as some original songs: “Hiawatha’s Village, “The Shifting, Whispering Sands,” “Hardin Wouldn’t Run,” “Mean as Hell,” and “Reflections.”

In the liner notes to the aforementioned album, Cash noted that the idea for the album came from his producer, Don Law, who brought Cash books about the West. Cash read the book as well as back issues of the magazine True West and talked about the West with people like Joe Austell Small, publisher of several Western magazines. Cash wrote a number of songs for the album using folk song collections and the advice of Tex Ritter. He also spent time in the desert with his jeep, absorbing the landscape of the West. The album features narration by Cash between a number of songs, and the songs he wrote show the diversity of the West. After Columbia released the double album, they edited the project down to a single album called Mean As Hell.

The West and Western songs were an important part of Johnny Cash’s life and recordings, but Johnny Cash could never be fenced in by anything. A lot of people saw him as larger than life and he probably saw himself the same way.

In his songs, albums, and life, he always projected a sense of vision, a sense of “calling” and a higher purpose to his life and work. He had never been just another artist looking for the next hit or a singer just trying to get to the next gig. If Johnny Cash achieved the status of a great man, it was because he had aspired to become to become a great man. He set high standards for himself – in his life and his work – and worked hard to fulfill them.

On his album A Believer Sings the Truth, Cash wrote “The Greatest Cowboy of Them All.” The song compares Jesus to his cowboy heroes and uses cowboy imagery to point out that Jesus “loves all his little dogies” and that “He’ll lift up any maverick that falls/He loves every stray that scatters.” Cash concludes that Jesus “will take us through the wire/Right on to that plain that’s higher” because “He’s the greatest cowboy of them all.” With his faith intact, Johnny Cash left this life on September 12, 2003.
Don Cusic

Awards:

• 2013 Hall of Fame Inductees