February
26 would be Johnny Cash’s 81st birthday. Unlike many celebrities whose
name dies out with the obituaries of their fan base, Cash continues to
matter. And I think it matters that we understand why.
Cash remained—to the day of his death—a subject of almost morbid
curiosity for a youth culture that knows nothing of “I Walk the Line.”
At the 2003 awards show, 22-year-old pop sensation Justin Timberlake,
beating Cash for the video award, demanded a recount. Why would
twenty-something hedonists revere an old Baptist country singer from
Arkansas?
In one sense, the Cash mystique was nothing new. For the whole length
of his career, onlookers wondered what made him different from the rest
of the Hollywood/Nashville celebrity axis. Much of it had to do with
the “man in black” caricature he cultivated. Cash joked that fans would
often say to him, “My father was in prison with you.” Of course, Cash
never served any serious jail time at all, but he could never shake the
image of a hardened criminal on the mend. People really seemed to think
that he had “shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.” Continue at Russell D. Moore
