New In Paperback: Johnny Cash-The Life by Robert Hilburn

Johnny Cash- The Life by Robert Hilburn
Published by Back Bay Books ISBN 9780316194747
Trade paperback, $20, 688 pages

LaRue: 'The Life' chronicles Johnny Cash vividly : Diane Larue

“Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”. If you remember hearing that phrase in that iconic baritone voice, then Robert Hilburn’s comprehensive new biography, Johnny Cash: The Life is one of fall’s not-to-be-missed books.

Hilburn was the editor and pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times from 1970-2005, and his meticulous research and flowing writing style elevates this biography from good to great.

The book takes the reader through Cash’s entire life, from his days as a child, living with his family in Dyess, Arkansas, picking cotton on their land and singing gospel songs his mother taught him.

When John’s brother Jack died tragically in a farming accident, it devastated the entire family. John admired and loved his older brother and was destroyed when his father said aloud that it was John’s fault Jack died, even though there was no basis in fact for that.

Jack’s death colored the rest of John’s life; he never got over it. John loved music and after a stint in Germany in the military where he began to write songs and wrote to a young girl, Vivian Liberto, whom he met back home.

John courted Vivian, and when he came home they married and ended up in Memphis. There he met two other men, and they played music together. When Sam Phillips opened Sun Studio in Memphis, they began to get serious about a career in music.

Hilburn interviewed many people for this book, and at the end, he lists chapter by chapter with whom he talked. Over the years, he had interviewed Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, so he had a personal knowledge of his subject, which adds a great deal to this book.

This is a big book at 688 pages, but Cash led a big life, and calling Johnny Cash- The Life is more than apt. From the successes and good times to the pervasive drug use and infidelities, not only with June but with other women, and dwindling sales and creative dry spells, this book covers an amazing American life.

There are so many fascinating stories, and many of them have been covered before in other books and the terrific movie 2005 “Walk the Line”, but there is a depth here that gives a much more complete picture of his life.

After the success of the late 1960’s with the incredible “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison- Live” album, Cash hosted a successful variety show on ABC. He clashed frequently with ABC executives about the format of the show; he wanted to feature interesting musical guests and themed shows revolving around gospel music and folk music, they wanted circus themes and popular country music stars.

The 1970s and 80s were less kind to Cash. He recorded dozens of albums, few of them successful artistically or commercially. He was dropped by Columbia Records and moved to Mercury, but his slide continued.

Cash was supporting a large entourage, and June spent money extravagantly, so he had to tour hundreds of days a year to make enough money to support everyone. It was exhausting, and the drug use continued, much to the dismay of people close to Cash.

At the end of Cash’ career, he met iconoclastic producer Rick Rubin, best known for his collaborations with hip hop and rap artists. Rubin spoke extensively to Hilburn, so this part of the book is especially vivid. 

Cash did four CDs with Rubin, and it revived him artistically.  Although his health was deteriorating to the point where he couldn’t see or walk, his sessions with Rubin were a high point creatively. He won multiple Grammys, and was even nominated for an MTV Video of the Year Award for his video “Hurt”, which is now considered by many to be one of the finest videos ever made.

Hilburn brilliantly conveys the life of an American icon. From the Depression-era impoverished family life to musical superstardom to eventual decline to phoenix-like rise at the end of his career, from a failed first marriage to finding lifelong love with June and becoming a good father, from drug use to failing health and losing his beloved wife, this is a book not only for Johnny Cash fans, but for everyone who likes a good biography.

If you weren’t a fan before reading this, you will be after, and you’ll be searching out Cash CDs as well. This is simply one of the best books of the year, I give it five stars, and it made my list of the Most Compelling Reads of 2013.

You can read an excerpt from Johnny Cash- The American Life on Hilburn’s website at roberthilburnonline.com.

Bloggers Recommend review is here.

The Twelve Most Compelling Reads of 2013

This is from my Book Report column in the Auburn Citizen.

One of my favorite things about the end of the year is reflecting on all of the wonderful books I read this year, and so I present my Twelve Most Compelling Books of 2013.

The book that affected me most is a debut novel by Anthony Marra.  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena recounts the story of people caught up in the second Chechen war. The lives of an eight-year-old girl whose father was taken away by secret police, the neighbor who rescues her and a young doctor looking for her sister all collide in a fascinating way. My review is here.

Donna Tartt takes ten years to write each novel and her latest one, Goldfinch, is more than worth the wait. Twelve-year-old Theo Decker loses his mother in a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum and his journey to find a home and the people he meets along the way makes for a breathtaking book.

Alice McDermott’s quiet Someone tells the story of Marie, a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the 1940’s. She reflects on the big and small moments of her ordinary life and she will touch your heart. McDermott is a SUNY Oswego graduate, and this continues her remarkable writings of the Irish-American experience.

Mary Beth Keane’s Fever takes the Irish historical character Typhoid Mary and brings her to vivid life. The characters, the setting, Keane gets all of the details right, and we see how immigrant women, particularly those who were not servile in attitude, were looked upon with suspicion.  My review is here.

In Me Before You, British writer Jojo Moyes brings us two intriguing characters- a vital, wealthy young man who becomes paralyzed after an accident and the working class young woman hired by his parents to care for him. Their relationship starts out rocky, but soon we see why she was hired and how they change in each other in profound ways.  This is a wonderfully sad love story.

Another sad but thought-provoking debut novel is Priscille Sibley’s The Promise of Stardust about a doctor whose young pregnant wife has an accident that leaves her brain dead. This will make you realize the importance of having a discussion about tough issues with your loved ones. My review is here.

Laura Hemphill spent time working on Wall Street and puts that knowledge to good use in her novel Buying In. We see the inner workings of financial analysts and any book that can make aluminum manufacturing this interesting is one worthy of being on this list.  My review is here.

Meg Wolitzer’s novel The Interestings intersects the lives of six teenagers who meet at a summer camp for the arts in the mid 1970’s. Jules is the outsider who is thrilled to be involved in this in-group and we see how their friendship changes over the years and how we are never really as interesting to the rest of the world as we are to ourselves. My review is here.

There were many terrific non-fiction books this year and Robert Hilburn’s Johnny Cash-The Life tops the list. Cash is a true American story, from his poverty-stricken days picking cotton on his family’s small farm to his rise as a country music superstar, through drugs and alcohol and infidelity and his strong faith that sustained him through good times and bad. My review is here.

Sheri Fink’s meticulously researched Five Days at Memorial shows us all sides of what happened at a hospital in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. A doctor and two nurses were accused of fatally injecting patients with morphine and other drugs in mercy killings, and Fink writes the book in a way that reads like a fast-paced mystery.  My review is here.

The bodies of five young women, all of whom worked as prostitutes, were found buried on Gilgo Beach on Long Island and Robert Kolker tells their stories in Lost Girls. Kolker interviewed the families and friends of the women, as well as the people who live on Gilgo Beach, to discover what happened to them, but no one has been arrested. We see how poverty, sexual abuse, and lack of education can create an almost inescapable downward spiral. My review is here.

Darlene Barnes was looking for an empty nest job and she found one cooking at a fraternity house. In Hungry she shares how she worked to use more organic, locally sourced food to create a healthier way of eating for her customers. I loved her prickly personality and her relationship with the young men. My review is here.

I hope you have read some great books in 2013, and I look forward to more in 2014.