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April 03, 2006
"Cash: The Autobiography" by Johnny Cash, with Patrick Carr
This autobiography of country and rock and roll star Johnny Cash was one of the main sources of information and inspiration for the recent Oscar-winning movie "Walk the Line". In it, Cash reveals plenty about both his professional and personal life. He charts his career for the reader, ranging from the Sun Record days of the mid-1950s (recording his first hits, touring with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison) to being the top musical act in the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s (his records outselling the Beatles, his famous prison concerts at Folsom Prison and San Quentin, his hit television show), to his career low in the 1980s, to his career revival with hit alternative rock albums in the 1990s with producer Rick Rubin. At least as interesting as his career highlights, though, are the stories he tells of his personal life: growing up picking cotton as a child, his recurrent struggles with addiction to amphetamines, and his quite moving views on spirituality. The tone throughout the book is remarkably humble, and Cash is a wonderful story teller. I thought this was a great book, and recommend it both as the story of one of America's great musicians and as a first-person chronicle of the birth of the rock-and-roll era.
ISBN: 0061013579
Harold T., reference
Posted by jnardine at April 3, 2006 09:20 AM