I Walk the Line
Johnny Cash

He was the coolest country singer ever, the man who in his own words “taught the weeping willow how to cry” Mr Johnny Cash and his signature tune from 1956 I Walk The Line. More than 100 singers and bands have recorded versions of Johnny’s unadorned ode to abstinence and martial fidelity from Dean Martin, Telly Savalas, Leonard Nimoy, Connie Francis, Dolly Parton to the Dave Clarke Five.

It’s practically impossible to gauge just how influential Johnny Cash has been down the years but suffice to say his gnarled, simple songs of love longing and redemption from the 1950’s and 1960’s were as important to the development of American roots music as the Beatles were to the development of pop music. Today modern country stars still worship at his black clad altar and if anything he’s more popular today then he’s ever been. A fine example of the great man’s influence is the tribute modern country singer songwriter Rodney Crowell paid him last year on his superb album the Houston kid, in one of his sons he sang

“I’ve seen the Mona Lisa I’ve heard Shakespeare read real fine….just like hearing Johnny cash sing I walk the line” - poetry indeed!!

Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland Arkansas on February 26th 1932, he was christened JR and it was only when he joined the airforce that people started to call him John. He grew up in grinding poverty in Dyess, Arkansas where he’d been fascinated by music since his earliest days but it was only when he left the service and decided to try his luck as a singer in Memphis that his career really started.

Like every eager young musician in the Memphis area in the early 1950’s Johnny took his talent to Sun records on Union Avenue in a run down part of town. You don’t need to be a student of rock and roll history to know that Sam Philips recorded some of the most groundbreaking records of all time in his humble little one room recording studio he called Sun - .a name chosen to symbolise a brand new day by the way! Great Balls of Fire, That’s All Right Mama, Blue Suede Shoes they all were recorded there, as were some of the greatest R&B from the era with names like Howling Wolf, BB King, Roy Orbison and Rufus Thomas all making early recordings for the label.

Sam Philips was a great instinctive producer who quickly realised talent when he saw it, with Johnny Cash though he felt he needed to direct the man’s talents away from the spiritual songs that John preferred to play in those early days. By directing Johnny away from spiritual numbers to the stripped back sound of his most famous tracks is what really made Johnny’s early recordings stand out. He had a strangely expressionless voice, a flat dry, often, one tone voice that reflected the often dry, blackly humorous nature of his lyrics. The austere sound of his vocals and the tone of his lyrics were perfectly off set by the ultra primitive sound of the man’s backing band in that early era the simplistic Tennessee 2, in that sound that rough mix of country, r &b and gospel gave birth to the rockabilly sound of the mid fifties - Johnny was a man ahead of his time!

His first single for Sun was Cry Cry Cry but it was the second release I Walk the Line that really established him as a songwriter to watch out for. The story goes that Johnny was talking with his long time friend Carl Perkins backstage, after another gig in another town, the two got to chatting about how difficult it was to remain faithful to their wives given all the temptations of life on the road, Johnny said he was finding it hard not to fall by the wayside but Carl said to him “ Johnny man, you gotta be true, you gotta walk the line”. Johnny was immediately taken with the expression and sat down immediately to pen the song, Perkins later said he wasn’t too miffed at his old friend stealing his expression because Johnny returned the compliment around the same time when he gave Carl the line don’t step on my blue suede shoes which went on to become Carl Perkins’ most famous number.

It’s a very rare example of a country song that advocates monogamy and turns its back on the temptations of the dark side of life. Most songs in the country music tradition are about cheating, drinking, generally misbehaving - I walk the line was like a breath of fresh air in 1956, it was different and catchy it was also given Johnny Cash’s private life at the time. Something of a hypocritical little song - Johnny you see was forever giving in to his demons, falling of the wagon and guzzling pills like they were going out of fashion.

Of course Johnny got himself clean eventually and went on from his 1956 glory days to even bigger success on Columbia Records, he released seminal albums like Live at San Quentin and Live at Folsom Prison and even up to his recent American recordings he’s still releasing quality albums that the critics love and the fans adore - he’s the man basically, a true American original, a one off and I reckon this is still his finest tune.

Written by Ralph McLean