Johnny Cash: The Life (22 page)

Early in the new year, Cash got some surprising news. During his trip home over the holidays, Vivian had gotten pregnant again. How thrilling that had always sounded in the past. This time, though, it left him even more confused. It seemed that the only escape was in pills.

Anxious, he began to press Billie Jean for an answer, perhaps pushing too hard. In time, Billie Jean might have accepted the proposal, but she wasn’t ready. Unable to stall any longer, she told him no.

Billie Jean tried to break the news gently. She explained it was too soon after Johnny Horton’s death, and she also mentioned, almost in passing, that she didn’t want to be tied down because she wanted to pursue a career in music herself. Cash told her he’d love for her to have a career; they could even tour together.

What she didn’t reveal were the real reasons: the drugs and his willingness to leave his family.

Cash wanted to be understanding. He told her to take more time. He called her almost daily for weeks, but he finally gave up and became bitter. He was fixated on the notion that the only reason she turned him down was that she wanted to be a singer, and he channeled that hurt into a song. To his mind, she was now the villain. Without any reference to Billie Jean, “Sing It Pretty, Sue” would appear on an album in 1962.

Cash was also depressed in the early months of 1961 by the
Five Minutes to Live
disaster. Carnall continued to look high and low for more roles, but he knew the word-of-mouth on the first film was going to make that difficult. Predictably, reviews were brutal, especially about the acting.

Even before
Five Minutes to Live
hit the theaters (usually as the bottom half of a drive-in double bill), Carnall started doing damage control. In May he told
Los Angeles Times
film critic and columnist Philip K. Scheuer that Cash’s film dream had just come true: he’d acquired the movie rights to the story of Jimmie Rodgers’s life from Rodgers’s widow. This was a film he really cared about.

Given all the turmoil, Cash felt a desperate need for a new start. For one thing, he wanted to get out of Los Angeles—but not back to Tennessee. He liked the independence of living in California rather than in the tight Nashville music community. He thought immediately of the quiet, rural open spaces of the Ojai area. He was still hoping his brother Roy and his wife would move there. Meanwhile, Cash told a local building contractor, Curly Lewis, that he was interested in finding a parcel of land for himself.

Lewis found the perfect property for a new house in Casitas Springs, less than five miles from the trailer park. The eleven-acre site was on the side of a hill (Cash often described it as a mountain) with no neighbors above and valleys on either side. With land for crops and horses, this was about as rural and isolated as you could get and still be only an hour outside Los Angeles.

Casitas Springs was founded in the 1940s as a bedroom community to serve the nearby oil field workers. By 1961, the collection of modest homes, the handful of mom and pop shops, and a couple of bars might have struck the average visitor as pretty trailer park–like itself, and that downscale setting must have been part of its appeal to Cash.

For Cash, who was bruised and battered emotionally, Casitas Springs was a way to say good-bye to Hollywood and get back to his roots. Lewis, who became a close friend to Cash, knew just what John wanted. During one of their visits to the site, Lewis said, “Here at the end of Tobacco Road, you get heaven.”

In mid-June, Cash did a concert in San Antonio and told a reporter for the
San Antonio Light,
which closely monitored the Cashes’ doings because of Vivian’s hometown connection, that he was building a new home on a site he had just purchased. He said one reason for the move was that the L.A. smog was bad for his throat and sinuses, but the main reason was that he wanted the isolation and what he felt was the freedom of rural life. “In the country, it’s more peaceful and you have more room.”

Working with Lewis, Cash designed his dream house, a sprawling, five-thousand-square-foot single-story ranch-style structure with four bedrooms, including a large master bedroom with the ceiling painted black with gold sparkles to resemble the sky at night. In its isolated mountain setting, the house was a private retreat from the rest of the world.

Even Vivian got caught up in her husband’s enthusiasm, especially when he became so excited walking around the property with Lewis that he fell to the ground and smiled as he stretched out and told the contractor, “I want the master bathtub this big and right
here.
” Always trying to put a positive spin on things, she thought the baby and the house would encourage her husband to settle down and recommit himself to the marriage; no more late-night partying, no more drinking, no more pills, no more rumors of other women. Maybe, she told herself, the worst was over.

GIVEN CASH’S DESIRE FOR
a new start, it was only a matter of time before he cut his ties to Carnall. The rise and fall of that relationship, in fact, was mirrored by the ups and downs of a thoroughbred horse they had bought with high hopes in 1959. They had pictured themselves rooting Walk the Line to victory at glamorous Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, or Del Mar, then stepping into the winner’s circle for photos and, not least of all, cashing those $100 win tickets. But Walk the Line encountered physical problems almost immediately, bringing unexpected vet bills. By the time the horse was finally cleared to run in late 1960, he showed little speed or spirit in morning workouts.

The horse’s handlers advised Carnall and Cash they’d just be wasting their money to race him at one of the Southern California tracks; there was no way he would be even remotely competitive. Not one to give up easily, Carnall suggested running him across the border at the Agua Caliente track in Tijuana, where the caliber of horses was much lower. Gamely, Cash agreed to ship the horse south; the purses would be lower, but still it’d be fun to stand in the winner’s circle.

Carnall and Cash led a large party of friends, including their wives, to Caliente on November 26, during Cash’s brief time at home before flying to Germany. Wearing the silks of Cash-Carnall, Walk the Line was entered in a $2,500 claiming race that was limited to horses that had never won—which wasn’t exactly the bottom of the barrel at Caliente, but close enough to see it.

Bettors thought so little of Walk the Line that he went off at 10–1 odds in the twelve-horse field. And they were right. The
Racing Form’
s summary of the race said it all: “Walk the Line was no threat.”

Hoping the race was a fluke, Carnall entered Walk the Line in another claiming race at Caliente two weeks later, and this time there was so little betting interest that he went off at a staggering 72–1. Predictably, Walk the Line finished far back. The horse raced fourteen times in 1961, all in Mexico, and the closest he came to winning was a second-place finish on May 5 in a $1,000 claiming-maiden race. His payoff that day was just $215. The horse was a money pit.

Cash, meanwhile, was finding Carnall increasingly difficult to track down, and he became increasingly frustrated with their relationship. He knew that Carnall was either at the track or out partying—all of which made that Saul Holiff guy look even more attractive.

On May 10, 1961, Cash started another Canadian tour, and Holiff was again by his side—complete with facts and figures about the tour and more talk about how Cash wasn’t maximizing his potential. Holiff’s professionalism made Cash more furious every time he was unable to reach Carnall in Los Angeles. The end came eight days later before a show at a hockey rink in North Bay, Ontario.

“I stood right next to Johnny when he fired Stew over the telephone,” Western remembers. “Johnny had been trying to get him all day because of some important contract negotiation, but Stew was at the racetrack. When we got to the show, Johnny found a pay phone backstage and he called Stew again. This time he reached him. He said, ‘Stew, I’ve done this for the last time. You’re fired.’ Stew put Lorrie on the phone, hoping she could save his job, but Johnny said, ‘Lorrie, I love you, kid, but this is the end. There’s nothing you can say or do. Stew is finished as of right this minute.’ And Johnny hung up. It was over.”

Stepping in quickly, Holiff went to Columbia Records in New York as Cash’s representative to urge the executives to treat Cash more like a pop act, knowing the label spent far, far more on promoting its pop acts than its country ones. Columbia staffers remember that Holiff was loud and insistent. He acted as if Cash was the biggest act on the label, when in fact the Columbia brass—from Goddard Lieberson on down—wondered if they should even re-sign him when his contract expired. Holiff then flew to the Far East to help promote an October USO tour he had booked for Cash.

To further his growing relationship with Holiff, Cash sent him a letter containing what he called “top secret” information that would give Holiff an edge in booking two other acts that Carnall represented, Rose Maddox and Bob Luman.

“Hint #1,” Cash wrote.

“I never paid Rose Maddox more than $150 per day and usually $125 per day and she was constantly available.

“Hint #2.

“Bob Luman has never worked a tour with anyone but me and we paid him $150 to $200 per day.”

Finally, he warned Holiff, “Stew will try to ‘snow’ you.”

Not ready to commit fully to a new management pact, however, Cash started scheduling his own dates. Because of his aversion to confrontation, it was a role for which he was ill equipped; he tended to accept whatever offer was given him, regardless of how low. When Western walked into Cash’s office one day in Los Angeles, he found him selling the whole show—including himself, the Tennessee Three, Gordon Terry, Rose Maddox, and Western—to a promoter for $1,250, which was less than Cash should have been getting for himself and the Tennessee Three alone.

Western wrote a blunt, pleading letter to Holiff.

“I hope on the next trip that you can reach some sort of management thing with Johnny as he is wandering in a fog, so to speak, now,” the July 1 letter read. “He is trying to keep his business affairs together and is also booking himself, neither of which is even a little bit successful. He is not a good businessman nor should he be on the phone when the bookers call for a Cash show. He is in serious need of expert advice on what to record and what to release, Saul, and if there was ever a big star on the brink of disaster, it’s Johnny right now unless he has some qualified help immediately.”

In addition to his stressing the need for management help, Western’s plea about Cash also needing advice on what to record and what to release underscored the feeling within the Cash camp that John needed stronger direction than Don Law was providing—and Holiff got the point. Over the coming months, Holiff would tell both Cash and Columbia executives that not only did Cash need bigger play, but also he needed a new producer.

Marshall Grant pored over music sales charts the way Carnall devoured the
Racing Form.
Back when Cash was hot, the bass player loved to check out all the various charts—the pop album chart, the pop singles chart, the EP chart, the country best-seller list, the regional charts—and he delighted every time he found Cash’s name. During the early months of 1961, however, Grant was resigned to not seeing Cash on any chart. There hadn’t been a Columbia album or single on the country singles charts since the previous October.

The reason was Cash himself. “With the drugs and his personal problems, we were having a hard time getting him into the studio,” said Grant. “Even when Law would schedule a session, we never knew if he’d show up or what condition he’d be in.”

All of this caused considerable soul-searching among everyone except Cash. Johnny Western felt that Cash was pretty much oblivious to his declining condition; he kept seeing fans packing the venues and cheering everything he did. “I don’t think he was alarmed,” Western says. “He was being his own creative person. When something didn’t sell, it gave him an excuse to go ahead in another direction.”

Western, however, was also alarmed about Cash’s drift. He kept in touch with disc jockeys and promoters around the country, and the feedback about Cash’s singles was increasingly negative. “When the amphetamines started to cause problems with his voice, the DJs noticed,” Western says. “Smokey Smith, who was on the radio in Des Moines, was really disappointed by Johnny’s performance on ‘The Girl from Saskatoon’ and ‘Locomotive Man.’ He told me, ‘I want you to tell Johnny Cash that if he ever makes another record as bad as those two, don’t even send it to me because I’m not going to play it.’ And Smokey was one of Johnny’s biggest fans.

“It put me in a terrible position. I couldn’t go to Johnny and tell him the songs were okay but his voice was awful. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t think anything was wrong. He kept telling himself, ‘I’m doing what I want to do and one of the records is going to click and the sales will be there.’ It was a tough time. Gordon Terry and I used to room together, and we’d say all the time that we can’t talk to Johnny anymore about the music, because you never knew what mood he was going to be in.”

To help accommodate Cash’s moods and vocal problems, Law booked a studio at Radio Recorders in Los Angeles for an entire week in late February instead of just the usual one day, hoping John would show up at some point in working shape. Before flying to California, Law spoke with Cash by phone, eager for some hint about what he wanted to record. Looking for any sign of a turnaround, Law was encouraged when Cash said he had two new songs—an Irish ballad called “Forty Shades of Green,” which he’d written after seeing the Irish countryside during a brief visit there, and “The Big Battle,” a recitation-type song that he claimed was one of the best things he had ever done. Cash was even thinking that the song, which was set in Civil War times, could become part of another concept album.

Cash felt especially good about “The Big Battle.” Even when he could find the time and the focus amid everything going on with Billie Jean, the drugs, and the constant touring, he worried that he had fallen into the trap of trying to write jukebox singles. Everything he wrote was starting to sound like something he had heard on jukeboxes or the radio. He told himself there was no meaning in most of what he was writing. He wanted to get back to songs that lifted people—the kinds of songs that had drawn people to him in the first place.

To regain his purpose as a writer, he searched through a stack of poems and story ideas he had written down over the years, looking for anything that “said something” the way “I Walk the Line” and “Five Feet High and Rising” had. He found the outline of a story about the casualties of war. Despite its Civil War ties, the story could apply to any military battle. The original impulse came from the many hours he’d spent in the Air Force watching all the young airmen at the base and thinking of how many millions of men like them had been sent into battle over the centuries. He also remembered all the stories he had read about how the horrors of war live on, both in the emotional scars suffered by the survivors and in the pain of dead men’s loved ones. About the song, he later said, “The big battle comes after the killing...in the conscience, in the hearts and grief of the people that suffered the loss.” He felt as deeply about it as about anything he had ever written.

He didn’t know if it would be a hit, but he wanted it to be his next single. That was the kind of music he wanted to stake his career on. “The Big Battle” and
Ride This Train
would be standards by which he would measure his work for years.

In the phone conversation with Law, Cash mentioned another idea that gave the producer pause. Even though Cash had just done a gospel album, he wanted to record another one—a collection of old-time gospel numbers. What he didn’t tell Law, however, was that a gospel album had an additional appeal to him: it would help ease the pressure to write new material. Rather than point out the urgency of building sales, Law again—for good or ill—left the decision in Cash’s hands. First they’d record “Forty Shades of Green” and “The Big Battle.”

Cash’s enthusiasm for the two songs gave Law hope that he would show up in good voice for the February sessions at Radio Recorders. To capture the lush feel that Cash wanted for “Forty Shades of Green,” Law assembled a large cast of singers and musicians—including a string section—for the session. Just before the session was to start at eight p.m., however, Law got a phone call from Vivian saying that Cash had a 103-degree temperature and couldn’t make it that first night. Rather than send all the musicians home, Law went ahead and recorded “Forty Shades of Green” and “The Big Battle” with Johnny Western doing the vocals. Law could then have Cash record the vocals on both songs later and substitute Cash’s vocals for Western’s. This was a common practice for salvaging part of a session.

When Cash laid down the vocals on the songs a month later in Los Angeles, he brought up another album idea to Law. He was still trying to outline what he was calling his new concept albums—collections of prison and battlefield songs. But this was something else, and it too wasn’t dependent on new Cash songs. The album would be called
The Sound of Sun
and would be built around songs by other writers as well as his own older material. Ever since he left Sun, Cash had been hearing from his fans and even other musicians that they preferred those records to the Columbia ones. They weren’t talking about the songs, Cash stressed to Law, but the
sound
of the stark, echo-driven Sun studio.

Law had tried to capture that sound at the Bradley recording facility in Nashville, but its ambience lacked Sun’s crucial dynamics. Cash suggested moving from the larger, better-known Studio A at Bradley, where they had worked until that point, to the smaller Studio B to see if it might better replicate the desired sound. As usual, Law nodded. He booked Studio B for the last week in April, hoping to record both the gospel album and the Sun project.

Perhaps to remind everyone of the feel he wanted, Cash kicked things off by playing a few of his early Sun releases. He then played various songs by other artists that he had enjoyed over the years. When recording for the album resumed on July 19, Cash included a couple of his own songs, “Play It Pretty, Sue” and “Tennessee Flat-Top Box.” The latter was reminiscent of the spirit of “Luther Plays the Boogie.” Much like Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” it was the story of a boy who played the guitar so pretty that people would come from all around just to hear him.

A third song he introduced in that session was an old blues-folk song, “Delia’s Gone,” which Johnny Western had recorded two years earlier. The story was based on the murder of a fourteen-year-old African American girl, Delia Green, on Christmas Eve 1900 in Savannah, Georgia, but the accounts took many different forms in song over the years, most of them told from the killer’s point of view. There was a placid, sing-along feel to Western’s version and a Pat Boone pop treatment in 1960, but Cash wanted a more threatening song in keeping with the line from Jimmie Rodgers—
I’m gonna shoot poor Thelma, / Just to see her jump and fall
—that had inspired Cash’s similar striking line in “Folsom Prison Blues.” In his hands, the folk tune became something immediate and menacing. Cash liked the way this album was shaping up.