Johnny Cash: The Life (8 page)

Marshall Grant was delighted to see Cash again, and they made arrangements to get together at Marshall’s house at 4199 Nakomis the following weekend; John and Vivian needed their first weekend in town to get things in shape at their apartment. Marshall said he’d invite Luther Perkins, Roy, and another employee, a steel guitar player named A. W. “Red” Kernodle. John then got into his car, turned right on Union Avenue, and headed home. Four blocks later, he passed a nondescript single-story building. Little did he suspect that it was the home of Sun Records.

John felt he was on a roll as he drove his new Plymouth to the Home Equipment Company headquarters on Thursday morning to begin the store’s version of basic training. Owner George Bates wanted new employees to spend time in each department so they would know how to respond to any customer question. Whether it was roofing, new flooring, aluminum siding, air conditioning, fiberglass, wrought iron rails, or appliances, Home Equipment was ready to help—complete with easy-payment plans.

Bates also wanted his new employee to get some experience working the store floor before sending him out to solicit customers door-to-door. John tried to pitch refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and other household appliances, but after two days, he still had no sales. Bates told him not to worry; he’d eventually get the knack. John liked Bates and tried to believe him.

Meanwhile, John was looking forward to getting together with the guys to play some music. Marshall and Luther were both born in 1928, which made them closer to Roy Cash’s age than John’s, but they formed an immediate rapport with the young man. While they gathered at Marshall’s house, the wives played cards in the kitchen.

Marshall described Vivian as “one of the most beautiful women I had seen in my life…lovely skin and gorgeous eyes. She and my wife fell in love in a matter of minutes, and that helped her start to get over some of her homesickness because she didn’t know anybody around here except John and Roy.”

For their first get-together, John brought along his cheap German guitar. He quickly emerged as the group’s unofficial leader. As they strummed their guitars, John sang lead and Marshall took over harmony, trying to sound as much as they could like the Louvin Brothers. Marshall admitted they were pretty rough. None of them was even good enough on the guitar to play lead, so they all had to play rhythm. Every so often, John would venture off and start singing a Hank Snow or Hank Williams song, but it was mostly gospel.

Roy never joined in the playing, despite an early interest in music when he and little J.R. would devote themselves to learning all the singers on the family radio. He just sat on the sofa, encouraging everyone. He saved his greatest praise, of course, for his brother.

Each time the guys got together on a Friday or Saturday night (sometimes both), the music sounded a touch better. Marshall and Luther just saw it as recreation; John was the only one who was serious about a music career. But something happened during one of their early get-togethers that started Marshall believing that all this fooling around might actually lead to something. Just before the end of the night, John, somewhat timidly, said he wanted to play a gospel song he had written in Germany. Titled “Belshazzar,” the song was drawn from the Old Testament and told the story of a king with false values.

Marshall was impressed that John could actually write a song. Roy, too, hearing about his brother’s writing, was even more certain that John was going to be a star.

As Grant recalled, John was excited a few days later to learn that Elvis Presley was going to do a free show at the opening of a new Katz Drug Store. John and Vivian went to the opening and watched Elvis, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black perform on the back of a flatbed truck parked outside the store. Because Elvis had only the one record out, they kept playing “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” over and over.

John was mesmerized by what he saw and heard, from the sensual energy of the music to the enthusiasm of the group of young, mostly female fans. He also was struck by how young Elvis looked. He was just a kid, he told Marshall later. In fact, John, Marshall, and Luther all began calling Elvis “the Kid.” Though only three years Elvis’s senior, at twenty-two, John suddenly felt old. He told himself he’d better get started if he was ever going to make it in the music business.

After Elvis stepped down from the truck, John went over and told him how much he liked his music. Elvis was flattered and invited John and Vivian to come see him again the next night at the Eagle’s Nest, a 350-capacity nightclub/dance hall located at the edge of the city limits at Highway 78 and Winchester Road.

Once again, Cash marveled at Elvis’s smooth delivery and the trio’s tightness. Afterward he said hello again, but he didn’t mention what was really on his mind: how to get in to Sun Records. John did bring up Sun when talking to Scotty Moore, and Scotty advised him just to call Sam Phillips and make an appointment. He told John, “He’s lookin’ for new talent.”

During a break at work the following week, John looked up Sun Records in the phone directory and dialed the number. When a woman answered, he asked to speak to Sam Phillips, but was told he was out of town. Oddly, John felt relieved. Always a realist, he knew he wasn’t anywhere near good enough to make a record yet. He wrote the Sun number on a piece of paper, though, and stuck it in his pocket.

When John showed up at Marshall’s house the following Friday, Marshall sensed something different about him. Instead of joking around between and even during songs, he was serious. He kept going over the same two or three numbers rather than shifting from one to the next as he had done on previous nights. One of the songs, “I Was There When It Happened,” was a gospel tune popularized by Jimmie Davis, the former Louisiana governor. Another was his own “Belshazzar.” John wanted their group to play as confidently as Elvis and his guys played.

That attitude turned their meetings from relaxed free-for-alls into real rehearsals—and the other guys picked up on it. Marshall was starting to see a future for the group, and he made a key suggestion: to be really good onstage, they needed a much fuller sound. It wasn’t enough for them all just to play acoustic guitars—and steel guitar on the occasional nights when Red Kernodle stopped by. Luther said he knew where he could borrow an electric guitar, and Marshall agreed to get a standup bass, even though he didn’t know how to play one. Because John was the singer, it was agreed that he would continue playing rhythm guitar. And sure enough, Luther showed up the following weekend with a Fender Telecaster and Marshall had a bass he’d bought for $25. Both instruments were pretty worn out. The Telecaster didn’t even have a volume control, so Luther had to place his hands across the strings to muffle them when he wanted to soften the tone. Trying to learn to play the bass, Marshall had written the names of the notes on adhesive and placed the tape by the respective strings. But their sound was already more commanding.

In his struggle to find and hold notes, Luther played a very slow, steady rhythm on his guitar. Marshall tried to follow along, playing the same notes as best he could, in the same deliberate manner. They were literally going from one note to the next like someone typing in a halting hunt-and-peck style.

They kept it up the next weekend, but they just couldn’t get beyond that simple, primitive sound—the humble beginnings of what they began to refer to as the
tick-tack-tick-tack
sound, the style others would someday label
boom-chicka-boom
. It wasn’t that they thought they had discovered something; it was just about the only way they could play. Oh, well, they told themselves, it’s a start. They’d get better.

When John went into the kitchen to tell Vivian about the progress they were making, he got some news of his own.

She was pregnant.

The other wives cheered as he took Vivian in his arms and gave her a hug. He had been home only three months, but his dreams were starting to come true. About that time Cash would later say, “I was full of joy every morning.”

And by mid-October, he was ready to go see Sam Phillips.

CASH STARTED HIS NEW CAMPAIGN
to reach Phillips by phoning Sun Records, only to be told again that Phillips was out of town. After three or four attempts, Cash assumed that Phillips was flooded by audition requests and was simply not taking calls. As he later learned, Phillips was indeed on the road constantly, hoping to get more airplay and better sales distribution for Elvis’s records. Phillips was so focused on his young star that he released only two singles by other artists in the entire second half of 1954—and he didn’t devote much promotion time to any of them.

As soon as “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” hit in July, Phillips knew he had to rush out another single to convince radio stations and retailers that Sun’s new star wasn’t just a one-hit wonder. Phillips released Elvis’s second single, “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and “I Don’t Care If the Sun Don’t Shine,” the last week of September, and he spent most of October on the road promoting it throughout the South. He also accompanied Elvis to Nashville for his Grand Ole Opry debut on October 2. The Opry, of course, was the goal of every country singer. Not only was it the most respected of many of the country music showcases around the country, but also it offered the most exposure, thanks to a national NBC radio hookup every Saturday night.

Phillips likely knew from the beginning that Elvis and the Opry weren’t going to be a good fit. For all its storied history, the Opry, in the rapidly shifting culture of the mid-1950s, was definitely the old guard. Elvis, Sam liked to think, was the future. When Opry manager Jim Denny proved cool to Elvis’s performance, Phillips thought immediately of the next-best country showcase—the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The Hayride, which had played a major role in the launching of Hank Williams, was less formal than the Opry, more open to change and experimentation. Though its radio show didn’t have as big an audience, it blanketed the Southern and Southwest regions, which were the heart of Sun’s market. Phillips headed to Shreveport to watch Elvis make his Hayride debut on October 16. Management was delighted by what they saw and signed him to a one-year contract.

Back in Memphis, John Cash was getting impatient.

When he phoned Sun in late October or early November, he got some good news: Sam was supposed to be back in the office on Monday. That was all John needed to know. On Monday, he stopped by Sun on his way to work and waited by the front door for Phillips to arrive. His aggressiveness paid off; Phillips was impressed by Cash’s enterprise. When John told him he wanted to make a record, Sam invited him into the studio.

There was something about this young singer that appealed to Phillips. He wasn’t like most of the other young singers who had been coming by Sun since Elvis’s success; there seemed to be a certain depth to him. When Phillips finally asked him to sing something, Cash picked up his guitar and launched into some of the songs he’d been doing in Germany, which meant a lot of Hank Snow, Eddy Arnold, and Jimmie Rodgers, as well as “Belshazzar.”

He sang for two or three hours, just going from one song to the next at random, even throwing in “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” when it popped into his head. Phillips heard something in Cash that he liked—a certain authority. It was virtually a replay of his first reaction to Elvis. Phillips also noticed that Cash, like Elvis, had a charisma about him. He was tall and commanding—he looked like a star. Phillips asked about his band. Actually, Cash replied, it was just three guys, and they weren’t real experienced. Looking back, Phillips recalled that it wasn’t clear if Cash was auditioning for himself or for the group. No matter, Phillips said; he’d like to meet the other musicians. Sam wasn’t big on polish. He was into feeling. He told Cash that if he could find the right song, he might be interested in recording him.

Cash got into his car and drove the four blocks to Automobile Sales, where he told Marshall, Luther, and Red about meeting Sam. In hopes of catching Phillips before he left town again, the four of them went back to Sun the next morning. “It was just to say hello,” Grant recalled. “We didn’t even bring our instruments, but we could see that he liked John and we all got along pretty good.” Once again, Phillips invited Cash to come back if he came up with a good song.

Feeling they had a mandate, the foursome went back to work on “I Was There When It Happened,” the song they thought best showcased them. Cash knew Sam didn’t want gospel music, but figured maybe he could change his mind if the song was good enough. The musicians spent a couple of weeks rehearsing and then went back for an informal audition. As Phillips set up microphones in the studio, the musicians began tuning their instruments. Suddenly, Kernodle started shaking so badly he couldn’t tune the pegs on the steel guitar. He kept going over or under the desired marks. This in turn made everyone else more nervous. After a few minutes of this, he stood up, walked over to Marshall, and whispered, “Grant, I can’t do anything but hold y’all back.” With that he left.

Embarrassed, Cash took Phillips into the control booth, where he explained what had happened. “John apologized to me for not having a professional band, but I said that he should let me hear what they could do and I would be able to tell whether they had a style I would be able to work with,” Phillips recalled.

At Phillips’s signal, John, Marshall, and Luther started playing “I Was There When It Happened,” but they were so ragged—Marshall swore that John was shaking almost as badly as Red had been, perspiration pouring down his face—that they feared the worst.

Sam came back into the studio and adjusted the microphones again to improve the sound balance. He then asked them to play the song again. This time they were more relaxed. and the music came together nicely. They felt they had nailed it.

Marshall didn’t know what to make of it when Sam’s first words to them as he walked out of the control booth were “There’s something really squirrely about you guys.”

Squirrely?

What he meant, it turned out, was that there was something different about them—which was high praise in the Sun owner’s mind.

“I’ve never heard anything like it before, it’s different,” he told them. “I like that. But I’m not going to record a gospel song. I can’t sell ’em. I’ve tried and it didn’t work.”

Though he didn’t spell it out for them, Phillips was fond of the trio’s spare but insistent rhythm, and he especially liked the understated force in Cash’s voice. When listening to most want-to-be singers, Phillips could tell exactly who they were trying to sound like—in most cases recently, Elvis Presley.

When Cash sang, the only person Phillips heard was Cash himself. Not only was he different from Elvis; he was different from the Nashville singers. Phillips was privately pleased, too, that the steel guitarist had left. He felt that the instrument would have taken away from the trio’s uniqueness; it would have made the music sound too much like all those conventional country records coming out of Nashville.

At the end of the audition Phillips told Cash, “If you come up with something original, something that’s not gospel, I’d like to hear you again.”

The solution came quickly.

When they next gathered at the house on Nakomis, John pulled out a piece of paper with the “Hey, Porter” poem written on it.

“What do you think of this?”

It was a good thing Cash’s country music dream was driving him on, because it kept him from brooding about his problems at Home Equipment. Actually, it was just one problem: he couldn’t sell anything door-to-door. Maybe it would have been different if his route had covered the wealthiest families, but he was the new guy, so he had to spend his days in the poorest neighborhoods.

John had seen people struggle too many years in Dyess to ever forget what it was like. He knew that many of the people who answered his knock had barely enough money to feed and clothe their families. Some depended on the charity of their church, family members, and neighbors. So in most stops on his route, John just made a half-hearted pitch.

John’s low-key selling style worked in his favor one day at the store. Vivian was suffering from severe morning sickness, and John wanted to find an apartment closer to Home Equipment than the one on Eastmoreland, which was a good fifteen minutes away, so he could rush home if she needed him. He also wanted to get a first-floor place so his wife wouldn’t have to climb stairs and risk the chance of falling. But he couldn’t find anything he could afford.

Just before closing time one evening, a woman came into the store to look at used refrigerators. When John walked over to her, she asked him the price of a nondescript unit. Before looking at the tag, John guessed, “About thirty dollars.” After seeing the tag, he shrugged. “They want sixty-five dollars for that, and it only has a thirty-day guarantee.”

The woman was Pat Isom, and she was understandably surprised. Was this nice young salesman trying to talk her out of buying the refrigerator? She asked if he enjoyed working at the store and John said yes, except that he was having trouble finding an apartment nearby for $55. He then explained Vivian’s pregnancy and the run-down apartment on Eastmoreland.

Isom and her husband owned a duplex just three blocks away, and they were trying to rent one of the units. Cash followed her over to 2553 Tutwiler Avenue and thought the place was perfect, but he didn’t think he could afford it. When Isom said he could have it for $55, John wanted to hug her. As the months went by, he could rarely pay the Isoms even that much, but he paid as much as he could, and the couple was nice enough to let this “real quiet and bashful boy” run a tab.

Vivian was overjoyed by the new, cleaner apartment, but she was also worried about finances and the upcoming baby. Gently she brought up the possibility of moving back to San Antonio so they could be close to her family. Unknown to Johnny, her father was sending her a small check periodically to help them get by.

The Isoms weren’t the only ones whose generosity greatly benefited John and Vivian. George Bates was proving to be an even bigger help to his new employee. Cash did sell an occasional washing machine or some ornamental fencing, but it wasn’t adding up. All he was making from commissions was about $12 to $15 a week, which simply was not enough to live on, especially with a baby on the way.

He went to Bates to talk about his future. He thanked his boss again for believing in him. But he said he just couldn’t make it on his commission. Bates told Cash that if he’d keep trying to sell, he would receive a weekly advance—as long as the young man agreed to pay it back eventually. John thanked Bates profusely, but he couldn’t help feeling he was some kind of guinea pig—“like a pet project to see how far I would go on taking draws and not producing anything.”

But the support meant a lot to Cash. He was glad to see that the world outside Dyess had some kindness in it, too.

The residents of Memphis’s poorest black neighborhoods reminded Cash of a lot of the people in Dyess. He noticed particularly how they remained hopeful in the face of overwhelming economic odds and how music seemed to help lift their spirits. In almost every house he heard music coming from the radio—usually blues and gospel artists. He enjoyed the sounds, and he began listening to more black music on the radio. It was another significant step in building his musical vision. He was starting to weave together lots of rootsy influences. One of his favorites was Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a black gospel singer who’d grown up only about fifty miles from Dyess. John had been loosely following Tharpe’s career for years, admiring the way she mixed gospel themes with a rollicking, high-energy blues style—as on “Strange Things Happening Every Day.” In time, he learned that she took spiritual music into nightclubs and dance halls, not just churches and stately auditoriums—something he hoped to do one day.

On one of his daily sales rounds, he came across an elderly man strumming his guitar on his front porch. Cash walked up to him and said he sure liked the music. The man invited John to sit down, and he kept on playing blues tunes for the better part of an hour. He even boasted about how they carried his records at the Home of the Blues shop on Beale Street. At first Cash didn’t believe him, but the man went into the house and came back with a 78-rpm single with his name on it: Gus Cannon.

Born in the Mississippi Delta, Cannon was in his early twenties when he moved to Memphis around 1907. He began recording in the late 1920s and fronted a jug band for years. One of the group’s songs, “Walk Right In,” would become a folk-pop hit in the 1960s when recorded by the Rooftop Singers. Cannon had been retired since the late 1930s. Cash came back a few days later with his guitar, and the men played a few tunes together. Then John resumed his door-knocking for Home Equipment. Because of that black music, Cash started going to the Home of the Blues himself, looking for records by Sister Tharpe and others. On his tight budget, he couldn’t afford actually to buy anything, but he enjoyed being around the records, and he liked to listen to the customers talk about their favorite artists.

Most days, he spent much of his time at home listening to the radio to keep up with what his favorite singers were doing. He and Vivian also took walks in the park and drove to Roy’s house, where they were always welcome. Roy knew how difficult it was to get going financially, so he helped John and Vivian in lots of subtle ways. He and his wife had them over for dinner often, and when he went to buy clothes, he took John along, making sure to buy his younger brother at least a shirt or some socks.

On Sundays, John and Vivian frequently traveled to Dyess for some of Carrie’s country cooking, which was one thing John had missed greatly in Germany. Years later he would still speak about a “craving in his bones” for that Southern food. The one thing he did develop a taste for in Germany was large wiener sausages, which in turn left him a lifelong fan of hot dogs. Over the years, he developed a private list of favorite hot dog stands or shops around the country and invariably stopped by for a dog or two when he was in the area. At one point, after the money was flowing in, he even thought of opening his own hot dog chain, but calmer heads prevailed. Johnny Cash would never be known as a good businessman.