Cash: The Autobiography (21 page)

bring their favorite songwriters) and we'd all sit around in a big circle and show each other what we had. Kris Kristofferson sang “Me and Bobby McGee” for the first time on one of those nights, and Joni Mitchell “Both Sides Now.” Graham Nash sang “Marrakesh Express” and Shel Silverstein “A Boy Named Sue.” Bob Dylan let us hear “Lay Lady Lay.” Guy Clark came, and Tim Hardin, and Rodney Crowell and Billy Joe Shaver and Harlan Howard and everybody, just everybody. We did all the TV shows from the old Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, a converted church that had been the home of the Grand Ole Opry since 1943, and that was both good and bad. To my mind the good far outweighed the bad. The Ryman was the place, the true home of country music, slap bang in the middle of all the authentic stuff and the real country people, both musicians and fans, while on the other hand, the difficul- ties just weren't that significant. It appeared to me that ABC was perfectly capable of overcoming the problems of lighting, wiring, and so on with which the old building presented them, and I could bear the heat if they could. The Ryman wasn't air-conditioned; we hung a ther- mometer in the center of the auditorium one midsummer night and got a reading of 140 degrees. At times like that it sometimes seemed to me that the network people might have a point in wanting the show moved to New York or Los Angeles, but once I cooled down I held firm. I was on tour in Australia when I got the news that ABC had decided against renewing my contract for a third year. I was relieved. It had been hard work, and it had taken a lot away from my other work and even more from my home life. My weekly schedule while we were taping the show went like this: Monday morning through Thursday afternoon, rehearsal and preparation; Thurs- day night, taping the show itself; Friday morning to Sunday night, travel and concerts; Monday morning, back to work on the show. And the TV work was demanding, physically and creatively. I had to learn and

perform new songs every week, both by myself and with the guest artist, and it was difficult getting to the heart of die songs in such a short time, then having to forget them and move on to new ones. One thing's for sure: I could never have done the work if I'd been on drugs. Though a lot of people had trouble believing it, I was straight and sober for every one of those TV shows. I did them relying on God, not chem- icals. Now, I think, it's a little easier for Christians on TV. Religion isn't quite such a taboo with the networks and cable companies, and there are shows like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Touched by an Angel. Perhaps the executives in Manhattan and Hollywood are beginning to realize that the majority of people in the United States have some sort of religious conviction. A word of further explanation about why I professed my faith in Jesus Christ on network television. I knew it would turn a lot of people off because it might sound like I was proselytizing, but I had to let the chips fall where they may. If you want to be a good Christian, and by that I mean if you want to be Christlike, for that's what “Christian” means, you have to be willing to give up worldly things in order to stay true to your faith. I felt I had no choice but to declare myself. I was getting thousands of letters, the great majority from fellow believ- ers, asking, “People say you're a Christian. Are you?” or “You sing as if you believe in Jesus. Do you?” I felt I had to answer those people and everyone else who was wondering but hadn't written. I had to take a stand on my beliefs. I'd been a Christian all my life, and while I'd never advertised it (and never will; I've always guarded my testimony closely), I didn't believe I could compromise or evade when the ques- tion was put to me. I had to tell the truth. When I spoke out, I simply made my statement. I

never said, “You need what I've got because you're wrong and I'm right,” and after I'd declared myself I didn't set out to prove myself; I didn't start acting any differ- ently. I didn't have to, because I'd been acting according to my belief before I spoke up, getting my spiritual high by singing gospel songs and trying, despite my many faults and my continuing attraction to all seven deadly sins, to treat my fellow man as Christ would. There never was any dividing line between Johnny Cash the Christian and plain old Johnny Cash. The worldly consequences of my declaration were severe, not just in lost record sales but also in some of the reactions from religious people, which ranged from attempts to use me for their own purposes to condemna- tions and exclusions from their particular folds. But I've never regretted speaking up, and I believe that when I get to the Pearly Gates, that's one of the trials God might have in mind if He were to say, “Come on in, J.R. You've been faithful in a few things.” To be practical about it, you have to admit that if you were in my shoes and believed what I believe, you'd have been a fool to choose a decade or two's worth of record sales over eternal salvation. I'm reflecting tonight on an old gospel song, “Farther Along.” Farther along we'll know all about it, Farther along we'll understand why. Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine, We'll understand it all by and by. With my TV show ending, I took stock of my situa- tion and considered my options. On the strength of the body of work I already had, I thought, I could tour for- ever, and I just might do that.

A man who really helped me deal with my faith as a public person in the secular world was Billy Graham. He and I spent a lot of time talking the issues over, and we determined that I wasn't called to be an evangelist; that was work for people other than me. He advised me to keep singing “Folsom Prison Blues” and “A Boy Named Sue” and all those other outlaw songs if that's what people wanted to hear and then, when it came time to do a gospel song, give it everything I had. Put my heart and soul into all my music, in fact; never compromise; take no prisoners. “Don't apologize for who you are and what you've done in the past,” he told me. “Be who you are and do what you do.” I liked the sound of that and felt that Billy knew what he was talking about—he was familiar with the ways of the celebrity world in movies, sports, politics, and enter- tainment—and so I trusted his advice. It fit with my own instinct. I first met Billy through his initiative. He called me in 1970 shortly after John Carter was born, said he'd like to meet me, and asked if he could come visit me at home. I couldn't believe he'd want to, but I agreed readily, and he flew in from Asheville, North Carolina, and spent the night at our house in Hendersonville. We talked a lot during that visit, and I really liked him. By the time he left, we'd become friends. He didn't ask me to do any- thing for him; it was I who told him that if he ever wanted me to sing at one of his crusades, I'd be there. He took me up on that, and after June and I had worked a few of his crusades, we decided that we'd appear when- ever he asked. Billy and I have become very close over the years.

He's been our guest at Cinnamon Hill several times, and we do the same things I do with any of my other guests: ride the golf cart down to the sea, go up into the hills and see the sights, rest and relax in the beautiful old house. That's given me many opportunities for long, private talks with him covering all kinds of ground. We've talked about the music business, with him wanting to know what some of my fellow entertainers are like, what problems they've had in their lives and so on; he was interested, but never judgmental. We've talked about the younger generation, too—he's always worried about the young people—and I've expressed my faith in them. We've talked about politics, and he's given me his impressions of the politicians and statesmen he's encoun- tered in his ministry. I've always been able to share my secrets and prob- lems with Billy, and I've benefited greatly from his sup- port and advice. Even during my worst times, when I've fallen back into using pills of one sort or another, he's maintained his friendship with me and given me his ear and his advice, always based solidly on the Bible. He's never pressed me when I've been in trouble; he's waited for me to reveal myself, and then he's helped me as much as he can. Billy is a tall man, taller than the length of the antique beds with which June has furnished Cinnamon Hill, and so he has his own special place when he comes down to Jamaica. We even call it “the Billy Graham Room” with “the Billy Graham bed,” a standard Jamaican-style four-poster with a pineapple motif carved into the headboard, but an extra foot's worth of side rails added in, and a custom mattress. Which brings to mind a story about an element of Billy's human side, his shyness. He and Ruth, his wife, were staying with us in Port Richey for a few days. One afternoon we went out in the boat to one of the fishing houses built on stilts above the water about half a mile

out into the Gulf from the river mouth; a friend of ours owned it and let us use it whenever we wanted. They're wonderful places, those stilt houses. They have a fishing deck on three of their four sides, basic sanitary facilities in an outhouse, and one big room inside. You can go out there with a friend or friends and, if you want, spend up to two or three nights entirely in another element, with just the sounds and sensations of the sea and the sky all around you. The weather was gorgeous when we were getting ready to go out with Billy and Ruth, and it looked like being a beautiful night, so I suggested that instead of heading back in at nightfall, we stay in the fishing house and spend the night on the water. There were five beds in the house, more than enough. Billy agreed, so we got everything together and went on out. Around sundown, about the time I started yawning, he spoke up. “Where are we all going to sleep?” he asked. By that time he'd found out that there was just one big room. “Well, we'll each just pick a bed and sleep in it,” I said, thinking nothing of it. Billy didn't reply, but he looked a bit uncomfortable. To encourage him I said, “It'll be really wonderful, you know, going to sleep hearing the water lapping at the bottom of the house and everything. You'll be so glad you did it.” “Well, I'm looking forward to it,” he said, and I took it that he was reassured. Then, though, I started noticing that every time June, who had a slight cold, coughed, he looked at her sharply. And when she was still coughing a little after the sun went down and nothing remained but to prepare for bed, he spoke with authority.

“I'm worried about June,” he said. “She can't stay out here tonight. It's a shame, but we'll have to take her in.” And so we did. I met Richard Nixon around the same time I met Billy; I remember that John Carter was six weeks old, asleep in our hotel room with Mrs. Kelly, our housekeeper, watch- ing over him, while the president was giving a speech of introduction for my performance at the White House. He thought John Carter was asleep in the Lincoln Bedroom at the time—he'd told us we could put him down in there—and he made a joke about that: the way John Carter was going, he said, he'd probably be sleeping in the president's bed someday. John Carter was a famous baby. His appearance had been anticipated for a long time as June became more and more obviously pregnant every week on our TV show, and when he finally appeared, his picture was on the front page of most of the major newspapers in the coun- try. By the time we played the White House, Marshall Grant was joking that June and I should just lie low for a while and he'd take John Carter on the road. People would pay more to see him than they would to see me. Another part of the president's introduction became notorious at the time. Someone on his staff had called the House of Cash, where my sister Reba handled my affairs, and told her that Mr. Nixon had asked that I sing three songs very popular at the time: “Welfare Cadillac,” Merle Haggard's “Okie From Muskogee,” and my own “A Boy Named Sue.” Reba passed the request along to me, and I told her I'd be happy to do “Sue” but I couldn't do either “Welfare Cadillac” or “Okie.” The issue wasn't the songs' messages, which at the time were lightning rods for antihippie and antiblack sentiment, but the fact that I didn't know them and couldn't learn them or rehearse them with the band before we had to leave for

Washington. The request had come in too late. If it hadn't, then the issue might have become the messages, but for- tunately I didn't have to deal with that. Somehow, though, the news leaked to the press that I'd refused the president's requests, and that was inter- preted somewhere along the way to publication as an ideological skirmish. “CASH TELLS NIXON OFF!” was one headline, and the others pitched the same story. Nixon understood perfectly why I'd really turned him down, but he played it up anyway. “One thing I've learned about Johnny Cash,” he told the White House audience, “is that you don't tell him what to sing.” It got a big laugh and made the press very happy. After the performance he and Pat Nixon were the souls of hospitality. For almost two hours they gave us a tour around the whole White House, including their private living quarters—no other president has done that with me—and pointed out all the things they thought we'd find interesting. The president even had me lie down and stretch out on the Lincoln bed (and didn't charge me, either). He was really kind and charming with us, and he seemed to be honestly enjoy- ing himself. It was getting late, though, close to mid- night, and I worried that we were taking up too much of his time. I brought that up. “Mr. President, you've been very gracious to enter- tain us like this, but I know you have more important things to do. Don't you think we'd better leave and let you get some rest?” “Oh, no, don't worry about it,” he replied jovially. “I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow to meet the Apollo n astronauts after they splash down, so I'll sleep on Air Force One. I'll be fine. I'll get plenty of sleep.” So we relaxed and had a good time. We didn't talk about poli- tics at all.

He made a very good impression on me. I couldn't detect any artifice or calculation about his friendliness and interest in me, or his enjoyment; it seemed to be the real thing. That, I thought, must be what made him the consummate politician: the ability to focus, naturally, on whoever he was with and make them believe that at that moment they were the most important person in the world to him. I certainly felt, with some wonder, that I was being given priority over the dramatically imperiled crew of Apollo n just then hurtling back toward the earth's atmosphere as the whole world held its breath. President Clinton has that same quality. He hasn't afforded me the same attention Mr. Nixon did; but in my brief encounters with him I've seen how he can focus right in on you—look you straight in the eye and seem to be concentrating totally on what you're saying, or indeed to be really doing that, not pretending. He too has given me a tour of the White House, but not quite so intimately as Nixon did; I was with June at a reception for the Kennedy Center Honors, and he took me and the other 1996 honorees off and showed us around. He was very gracious, and completely open to anything we wanted to talk about. Most of the talk was light, of course; it was that kind of event. The White House Christmas tree, I remember, was beautiful, covered with ornaments from all over the world, a real dazzler. It took about twenty minutes for the Clintons to make their way around it, telling us about all the decorations, who they came from, where, and what they symbolized. I should say that I think there was a tree under all that stuff; you couldn't really tell. I personally didn't have much to say to Mr. Clinton. There was a point during the intermission in the Kennedy Center show when he came over to me and we made some sort of small talk for a little while until I found myself standing there with a Coke in my hand, nodding, not knowing quite what to say. As I happened to be look-