Better than Money: Johnny Cash

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Boston, Massachusetts - July, 2006 

One-upmanship is unseemly. Boasting is gauche. But forgive me: I can't resist telling this tale. When asked about their first concert, most fiftysomethings invariably sigh in quasi-pain and confess to a night with Journey or Loverboy. Maybe worse.

When this question comes my way - or, ahem, when I introduce the topic - I get to say: "Johnny Cash." My first torn ticket was the man in black, the country singer most respected by rock people, the man who covered everyone from Dylan to Nine Inch Nails to the Beatles. I was 13, and the concert took place at the Bangor Auditorium in Bangor, Maine, near the big lumberjack statue. The Carter Family, the Statler Brothers and the Tennessee Three were on the bill, too.

I can't claim any particular childhood hipness. At that time, Cash was probably pretty unhip with my cool crowd. I was mostly there because Cash's carousing, rollicking song, A Boy Named Sue, written by the late Shel Silverstein, was riding high on the charts. I played my copy until the grooves gave out.

In the song, a father names his son "Sue" to toughen the kid. The boy doesn't know that intent until the final verse; he spends most of the song hating dad for what he'd done, noting, "Well, I grew up quick and I grew up mean/My fist got hard and my wits got keen." When he finds out why his dad - who left the family when the boy was three - named him Sue during a long-sought confrontation, he throws down his gun and they embrace with an emotional kick.

Johnny Cash on tour, circa 1967.

Cash's show kicked harder. We got the full treatment, including I Walk the Line and Ring of Fire. We heard that donka-donka-donka rhythm line that was Cash's signature sound. We heard that gruff old (he was old to me) baritone growl out songs of strife and triumph. He also imparted a fashion sense to an impressionable kid: Black is best. When punk rock came around, I was dressed for the occasion.

Fast forward to the 1980s. I'm working as a music critic at the Boston Globe. I leap at the chance to review Cash, with wife June Carter, at an outdoor arena south of Boston. No couple other than Sonny & Cher ever expressed as much loveshtick on stage. But when June took a break from singing duets like Jackson, Johnny dug into the gritty ones.