Johnny Cash: The Life (26 page)

After a couple of vacation days, John and June headed for Los Angeles and the Hollywood Bowl—and the inevitable encounter with Vivian. “Saul told me I should not be with June anymore,” Cash related. “He said, ‘You’re going to go through a living hell.’ I said, ‘I know, but I’m not gonna live without June.’”

Just as great athletes are able to shake off a disappointing performance, Cash showed in the “John Henry” session that he too was able to put the embarrassing Carnegie Hall show behind him quickly and look forward to the next challenge, the eighteen-thousand-seat Hollywood Bowl. Not so with Holiff. He was worried about a relapse at the Bowl, the summer home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Beatles would play there in both 1964 and 1965, but country was a rare presence. The only previous show listed in the Bowl archives featured Hank Snow, Lefty Frizzell, the Collins Kids, and the L.A. Philharmonic on “Western and Country Music Night,” way back in the summer of 1955.

In bringing Cash to the Bowl, Holiff went to great lengths to make sure there would be a full house. He teamed up with a local radio station, KFOX, to guarantee that the concert would receive heavy promotion among the city’s country music fans. He also packed the bill with enough stars for two shows: Marty Robbins, Don Gibson, Patsy Cline, Flatt and Scruggs, George Jones, Mother Maybelle and the Carter Family, Sheb Wooley, Johnny Western, Gordon Terry, Tompall and the Glaser Brothers, the Hollywood Square Dancers, and Roger Miller. To emphasize Cash’s folk connection, Holilff titled the evening the “
1ST GIANT FOLK WESTERN BLUEGRASS MUSICAL SPECTACULAR
.”

He also took steps to minimize the damage in case Cash’s voice was anything close to the Carnegie Hall nightmare. Instead of having Cash—who was, after all, the headliner—close the show with a lengthy set, he restricted him to thirty minutes. Holiff wasn’t just worried about Cash’s voice. He also knew Vivian would be attending the concert, and the pressure of putting his wife and his new girlfriend together could send Cash reaching for even more pills.

To everyone’s relief, Cash showed up at the Bowl that afternoon in relatively decent shape. He may have taken pills, but he was in good spirits, and his voice sounded at least passable. Holiff and other members of Cash’s inner circle celebrated backstage, but not everyone would go away happy.

At the end of the show, Vivian took the girls and John’s parents to the artists’ parking area, as instructed, to say good-bye to John before he headed for Phoenix, where another concert was scheduled for the following night. Accounts vary as to what happened next. Some remember John greeting the family, but he was distracted, constantly looking over his shoulder for June. When he finally saw her, he quickly said good night to the family and led June to a Cadillac. Others recall John and June both just rushing by on their way to the car.

Whichever version is true, the result was the same: Vivian was humiliated and his parents were furious.

“I remember him in the backseat of the car when all of a sudden—out of nowhere—June races up and jumps right in the middle of the backseat, not at the other end of the backseat, but right next to him,” relates Kathy Cash. “Then she goes, ‘Bye-bye, Vivian. Bye-bye, girls.’”

Johnny Western, who drove the Cadillac to Phoenix that night, also watched the drama unfold. “As soon as Vivian saw him get into that car,” says Western, “a lightbulb came on. Maybe it was the way he looked at June. Maybe it was the way they sat together so close in the backseat. The look on Vivian’s face was pure anguish.”

The scene troubled many in Cash’s circle, including Grant, who thought the world of Vivian. But Patsy Cline apparently was the only one who spoke directly to June about it. The two singers were part of a small sorority of female stars in country music, and they found they had a lot in common when they met around the time June’s marriage with Carl Smith was ending.

They were both from Virginia, had sung on the radio as teenagers, and had rocky marriages. Beneath her brassy, cocky persona, Cline had deep feelings of insecurity, especially when it came to men. Three years older, June became something of a big sister. She listened to Patsy’s problems, offered advice, and even let Patsy use her house as a retreat when she needed quiet time.

One persistent message from June to Patsy was to stop her fooling around with so many men. She even had a name for it: “running, jumping, and playing.”

Shortly after the Bowl incident, big sister June went into another one of her lectures: “Patsy, you’ve got to quit your running and jumping. You’re married.”

Cline responded angrily, “Who are you to talk? You’re doing the same thing to Vivian that Goldie Hill did to you.”

The words hit June hard. But it was too late. She was in love with John, and she remembered her mother’s lesson of never giving up on the man you love.

CASH WANTED TO BE WITH JUNE
as much as possible, and he went often to Nashville, both to see her and to do more recording sessions. He was eager to proceed with the album inspired by “John Henry.” Don Law, too, was desperate for some new music, hoping for something to put Cash back on the charts in a big way. He was deeply impressed by “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer,” but he couldn’t release an eight-and-a-half-minute single when DJs rarely played anything more than three minutes long in order to squeeze in more commercials and talk.

During July 30 and 31 sessions in 1962, Cash recorded a version of “Casey Jones,” the traditional song about a courageous train engineer, and “Waiting for a Train,” the Jimmie Rodgers song. Again he had the Carters sing backup vocals. Returning to the studio four weeks later, Cash recorded another one of his longtime favorites, Merle Travis’s tale of coal mining life, “Nine Pound Hammer,” as well as his first formal duet when Anita joined him on the gospel-type call-and-response of the traditional tune “Another Man Done Gone.”

But the song that most interested Cash, it turned out, was one that fit perfectly with his plans for the album, which he had decided to call
Blood, Sweat and Tears.
“Busted” was written by Harlan Howard, one of Nashville’s hottest writers thanks to such honky-tonk gems as “Heartaches by the Number” and “I Fall to Pieces.” Howard and his wife, a pretty young singer named Jan, had known John and June separately for years. Howard was born in Detroit, but his parents were from coal mining country in Kentucky, and he was fascinated by their tales of poverty and hard times back home. To honor that tradition, he took a break from his more commercial compositions and wrote “Busted,” never imagining anyone would want to record it.

Cash heard the song on a Burl Ives album and redesigned it, changing the setting from coal mines to cotton country. In addition, Cash changed the arrangement in the studio, throwing out the bright, sparkly tone of the Ives recording to a starker, more plaintive tone that seemed to better reflect the theme of the song and the album.

Law thought “Busted” had big commercial potential, and he told Cash he’d like to release it as a single as soon as possible, which meant at the end of the year. Columbia had just released “In the Jailhouse Now,” off the
Sound of Johnny Cash
album, and it climbed to number eight on the country charts, but it never made its way onto the pop charts at all. Columbia then planned to release “Bonanza!” in September, hoping fans of the TV show would be eager to buy it.

With June by his side, Cash resumed touring after the
Blood, Sweat and Tears
sessions, doing shows chiefly in the Midwest. He dreaded returning home because it would mean another confrontation with Vivian.

When he got back to Casitas Springs, the atmosphere was unbearable—and for all the couple’s hopes of shielding their problems from the children, it impacted everyone in the Cash household. It was as if darkness suddenly fell on what had been a picture-perfect time for the youngsters.

Unable to face Vivian, and not wanting to frighten the girls, Cash would bolt out of the house at all hours of the day and night, get into his car, and, he wrote later, “drive recklessly for hours through the streets and into the hills and deserts of California until either I wrecked the car or finally stopped from exhaustion.”

Frantic from worry, Vivian would wait at home for some kind of word—often from a policeman or a neighbor—so that she could go pick him up in another car and bring him home, only to have him race back out the door a few hours later and start the wait all over again. What kind of life was this?

The USO Far East tour came at an ideal time for Cash because it gave him a chance to get away from his problems at home. There was such a demand to see him that he sometimes played six shows a day, to as many as eight thousand soldiers each, on a tour that ran from October 28 to November 12. Cash, also joined by the Tennessee Three, spent countless hours meeting with soldiers, both in hospital wards and on the military outposts. By the end of the Korean leg, he came down with a severe case of laryngitis and had to spend time in the hospital himself before heading to Japan for the remaining shows. The mood among the soldiers in the Far East was anxious because the United States appeared to be on the brink of another war, this time sending troops to South Vietnam to defend the American ally against attack from Communist North Vietnam.

As on that day at San Quentin in 1960, Cash sensed in the overwhelming response that there was more at stake than simply playing to an audience starved for entertainment. He believed that these men and women saw in him a piece of home, and in the coming months that helped him greatly to further his identity in the music world. Looking into the faces of the sometimes smiling, sometimes downcast young soldiers, Cash felt he was summarizing in his music the things they both believed in, in terms of shared heritage and personal aspirations. He knew he would always have to answer to the commercial demands of a music career—he had to sell records and draw crowds—but he also began to accept that his personal destiny was tied to something more challenging and rewarding.

On the most exhilarating days, he told himself, in his naiveté and grand ambition, that he was celebrating the best of America. Cash volunteered to take messages from some of the soldiers to their loved ones back home. He then delivered them personally backstage after inviting the parents, girlfriends, or wives to be his guests when he did a concert near the soldier’s hometown. Cash, who often worried about his failure to live in accordance with his religious beliefs, felt reassured that God was blessing him after all. He discussed this with June, who also took their good fortune as a sign that God was watching over them, that they were going through a form of redemption.

Still, these moments of joy couldn’t erase all the unrest that had built up between the couple. John and June were already talking about spending their lives together, but there was the matter of their marriages. Privately, Cash was conflicted. How could he justify leaving his wife and the children? But then again, didn’t he have a right to be happy? For June, whose marriage was already unraveling, his drug habit remained a concern. On some nights she felt gloriously happy about her relationship with John, while on others she felt helpless.

When June returned to Nashville after the tour, she got a call from Anita, who needed a song to finish an album she was making for Mercury Records. She was already planning to record one song June had written with Merle Kilgore, “As the Sparrow Goes,” and she wondered if June had another.

Kilgore frequently got together with June in Nashville to write songs. Hank Snow and Anita recorded a duet of one of the early Carter-Kilgore compositions, “Promised to John” (not a reference to Cash), and June also recorded a couple of their songs for Liberty Records, but none captured much attention.

When Anita phoned this time, June thought immediately of “(Love’s) Ring of Fire,” the song she and Kilgore had written about her increasingly tumultuous affair with Cash. June got the idea for the song after seeing an underlined phrase in a book of Elizabethan poetry—about love being a burning ring of fire (or something to that effect; the exact wording changed over the years).

It was a simple song, but producer Jerry Kennedy liked the conflicting sense of lust and torment in the song, and Anita recorded it for a single. When he heard the song, Cash, too, wanted to record it, but he held back because he didn’t want to do anything to hurt Anita’s chances with the song.

The USO tour may have done wonders for Cash’s psyche, but he still had to deal with the challenge of selling more records. When he got back from the Far East, Cash learned that Columbia had told Law point-blank to stop wasting money and time on this drug addict. Law could proceed with the release of “Busted,” but he couldn’t record anything else. Unless the situation changed dramatically, Cash was going to be dropped when his contract expired at the end of the year.

Still believing in his artist, Law lobbied hard. He told his bosses that Cash was growing steadily as an artist and the new
Blood, Sweat and Tears
album would demonstrate it. Cash’s best years, Law argued, were still ahead; no one else in country music was showing the daring and imagination of Cash. He pointed to the rave notices about the Far East tour. The New York powers agreed to let Law and Cash go into the studio one more time. The date was set for the first week in March 1963.

Law, Cash, and Holiff were encouraged when
Billboard
magazine named the “Busted” single a “spotlight pick” in its January 12 issue, declaring, “Here is the old Johnny Cash on one of his best offerings in a long time.…Could go both country and pop.” The trade publication, however, was even more enthusiastic about another “spotlight pick” in that issue: “A most sensual tune is sold in winning fashion by the thrush who shows off her own individual and exciting singing style.” The single being praised by
Billboard
was Anita Carter’s “(Love’s) Ring of Fire.” In the end, neither record was a hit. “Busted” spent only three weeks on the country charts, and “(Love’s) Ring of Fire” didn’t make the charts at all. Cash couldn’t believe it. How could he fail with a song as great as “Busted”?

As the March recording date neared, Cash was frantic. According to a much-repeated Cash legend, the answer to his search for a hit came to him in a dream, when he imagined a version of “(Love’s) Ring of Fire” featuring a blast of mariachi horns. That would get everyone’s ear, he told Law the next day.

Cash may indeed have dreamed that horn arrangement, but it’s more likely that he heard a similar mariachi outburst on Bob Moore’s recording of “Mexico,” which had been a Top 10 pop hit the previous summer. Law even hired Bill McElhiney and Karl Garvin, the two Nashville trumpet players on Moore’s record, to play on Cash’s session.

Cash was betting everything on that song and arrangement. When Law scheduled the fateful session in Nashville, he planned to devote the entire three hours to the one song. There was no Plan B. Holiff had already begun canvassing other labels in case Columbia did drop his artist.

On March 5 the Nashville music community was shocked to learn Patsy Cline had been killed in a plane crash just outside Nashville. She was thirty. June was too shaken to go to the funeral, so she babysat for Patsy’s children. The “Fire” session that week was postponed. Law set a new date of March 25.

In the meantime, there was some good news. The
Blood, Sweat and Tears
album, which had been given up for dead after “Busted” stalled on the charts, started selling enough to break onto the pop charts, even if it was just a wobbly number 134. But Cash and Law were too nervous about Cash’s future on the label to rest their case on that showing.

Cash was so jittery on the eve of the session that he turned to an old friend. Whatever Cash thought of “Teenage Queen,” he believed that Jack Clement knew how to make hits. No one was more surprised than Clement, who had moved from Nashville to Beaumont, Texas, where he ran a recording studio and a publishing business, when Cash gave him a call.

“I was taking a bath one night when the phone rang and it was Cash,” Clement says. “He told me about this song and how he had a dream about using mariachi horns on the intro. To some people, it probably sounded like a crazy idea, but I think he knew it would sound normal to me. Besides, he wanted someone in his corner.”

Though he told Law that he just wanted Clement to sit in on the session, it was clear to everyone that Clement was in charge. Cash wasn’t in great shape vocally; the stress had led to the usual uptick in his consumption of pills, but he put everything he had into the song.

Whereas Anita’s vocal, as lovely as it was, had failed to capture the song’s underlying drama, Cash’s approach truly made him sound like a man caught in a tangled romantic web. He also massaged the words a bit and shortened the title to “Ring of Fire.”

This was no casual undertaking. The session had the desperate feel of a last chance as the musicians worked on the song again and again. In the end, everyone was elated. Clement had done a great job on the record, not just overseeing the horn parts, but also showcasing the classic
boom-chick-a-boom
rhythm more dynamically than anything Cash had done since leaving Sun. Clement later said he was surprised how excited everyone was that day. He had no idea what was at stake.

When Bob Moore heard the single on the radio, he figured Cash had gotten the idea for the horns from “Mexico” and he took it as a compliment. “To me,” he said, “it was like a wink and a nod, as if to say, ‘Job well done, Bob.’” Years later, Cash would repay the favor by hiring Moore to produce one of his albums.

The executives in New York were as excited as the musicians in Nashville. Holiff didn’t have to browbeat them to promote the record in the pop market. Even
Billboard
went along for the ride. In its May 4 edition the publication declared that in “a real enthusiastic performance, Cash sings this story saga emotionally over a sharp backing that has a Tex-Mex trumpet sound.”

“Ring of Fire” entered the pop charts at number seventy-two on June 1 and rapidly climbed to number seventeen. In the country field, the single spent seven weeks at number one. To take advantage of the momentum, Law and Cash quickly put together an album of selected recordings that hadn’t appeared on LPs before, including “The Big Battle” and “Tennessee Flat-Top Box.” Cash also slipped in two gospel numbers, “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)” and “Peace in the Valley.” Thanks to the massive radio airplay for the single, the album, titled
Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash,
spent more than a year on the pop charts, giving Cash his first gold record, signifying at least 500,000 sales.

Cash was again Columbia Records’ golden boy. Holiff went back to other labels with a much stronger hand, but he couldn’t get a better deal than Columbia was offering: a five-year pact that guaranteed Cash $500,000. The promotion-minded Holiff also got the label to throw in six full-page ads a year in the music trades to support Cash’s releases. To the outside world, Cash was back on top of his game. To those close to him, however, his personal life was still alarming.