Beneath the Stains of Time

I didn't forget, but I forgot to pass along, Sunday was Johnny Cash's 80th birthday. It was a lot of other people's birthdays as well, but the only other person I know who was born on Sunday was Andreas Sholten, who lived above us with his brother, mom and dad when we all lived at Ahornstrasse 67 in Offenbach am Main, damals wann wir jung war. Sorry Andreas, heute reden wir uber Cash.

I met Johnny Cash when he was 'media visiting' in support of Silver on CBS back in 1979-an album of classic country and western songs marking his twenty-fifth anniversary with Columbia Records. Bettina G of CBS set it all up and took a fair amount of ukase from her side of the glass because I was a rock and roll guy who pleaded and wheedled to get a chance to speak with him and then almost blew it but then had an awesome time.

The how-I-almost-blew-it part first: I showed up at the Intercontinental Hotel, on the banks of the Main, in uniform. I was in the United States Air Force and as full of pi$$ and vinegar as someone of my age and disposition working for American Force Radio Europe could possibly be (actually more so since unlike others at AFN, I had no talent so my big accomplishment was keeping people from finding that out).

Cash had served in the Air Force in Germany until he was discharged somewhat abruptly. The stories I had heard suggested the dissolution wasn't amicable. I used to tease people that blue (as in 'wild blue yonder') wasn't my color but I could do a passable impersonation of  an Airman when cornered. I saw myself as working and so I saw no reason to NOT wear the uniform. Some of Bettina's colleagues shepherding the press people at the Interconti made it clear I was fehl am platz in my uniform and were sure Cash wouldn't make time to talk with me.

When the elevator doors opened and Johnny Cash and his manager. Lou Robin, stepped into a very crowded corridor packed with every kind of reporter, photographer, film-maker and groupie (belt bunnies! Who knew?) and they each scanned the room in opposite directions to pick one person for an interview. Their eyes met one another after the sweep and from where I was I could see Cash mouthing the words "Air Force" and started forward even before Bettina had grabbed me and pulled me on board the other elevator for a ride up to his suite.

I didn't see Cash again until the elevator let us off and we entered a suite that may well have taken up the entire floor. Sitting across from him I became aware of how big, physically, he was-it felt like I was sitting across from Mount Rushmore. He was this legendary musician-at the founding of  rock and roll with Elvis,  Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. And he was just sitting there on the couch like a coiled spring.

 I began by asking him how Johnny Cash the musician could still be heard over Johnny Cash, the Legend, and that started him talking and talking and talking. I smiled and nodded even when I had no idea what his references were about-actually especially when I didn't know. I think he suspected as much but never caught me out on it.

He transcended all categories of music by using a TV show to introduce Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson among others to a much larger American audience and as we spoke about that, he noted that music and radio was better in his day, with fewer categories and few radio sales charts so that everyone listened to everything without prejudice or preconceived notion.

When he described his favorite songs, they seemed to be everything from everywhere, some blues, some gospel, hard rock and roll, folk music and jazz. But when he spoke about the Silver album he became very quiet because, as he explained, the challenge was to respect the classics he had chosen to perform-songs that defined so much of what  we call country music. That a man with his reputation could still be concerned about his treatment of well-known music spoke volumes about his approach to his art.

It felt like only minutes but the conversation went on for quite some time because Bettina had to make her way to the gift shop in the lobby and score a blank tape (I just realized I never did repay her for that purchase! Es tut mir leid!) so that Cash's words had somewhere to go. And then she had to go back down and get another as well. He would eventually stop speaking and I felt a pang of regret because it had been a glorious afternoon. When he stood up to say goodbye, his handshake was like nothing I'd experienced until then, or since. I had wanted to interview him as a job and by the afternoon's end it  had become a joy.

I spent most of the next two plus decades following him, being sad when his wife of many years, June Carter, passed away and he seemed to shrink and grow smaller in every subsequent publicity still. I was delighted when Rick Rubin signed him to his American Records Company label but followed the news stories on his failing health with trepidation. When he died, it seemed more a deliverance than a tragedy.

Johnny Cash made enough music to fill five lifetimes and he made it all in one, leaving us on his own terms with a song so stunningly delivered, it felt, said the man who wrote it for himself, Trent Reznor, as if he had penned it for the Man in Black.

"What have I become, my sweetest friend. Everyone I know goes away in the end. And you could have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will make you hurt." Happy Belated Birthday.
-bill kenny