Cash

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Sinner. Saint. Outlaw. Rebel.Voice of protest. Man of faith.

Johnny Cash is a giant of American music. In a testament to his life and legend, the editors of Rolling Stone magazine have compiled Cash.

Since its inception in the late 1960s, Rolling Stone has followed Cash's career, writing about him in settings that ranged from San Quentin prison to a glitzy Vegas hotel. Through the years, Rolling Stone has treated Cash not just as a country music star but a rock & roll icon, whose drug-fueled antics, black clothes and rebel stance have made him a hero to generation after generation of rock fans.

More than than the Man in Black image, it's the substance of Cash's music that make him one of the greatest musical figures of the past 50 years--the resonance of his deep voice, the driving beat of his simple, powerful songs, the fighting spirit of his lyrics, and his commitment to social justice. Johnny Cash defied convention and expectation at every phase of his career, and Cash chronicles all of it.

Cash brings together personal recollections from those who knew him best with the insights of some of America's finest music journalists. A moving foreword by daughter Rosanne reveals Cash as a loving, devoted dad who taught his kids to waterski and made homemade ice cream for them on summer evenings. From the Cash family archive we have Valentine's notes to his daughters from the road and many never before seen photographs. A visit with Johnny and June's only son, John Carter Cash, at the family's rustic cabin studio in Tennessee, provides an intimate look at his parent's drive to create new music until the very end of their lives. Moving personal tributes from Bob Dylan, Bono, Merle Haggard, Al Gore, Emmylou Harris, Tom Petty, Sheryl Crow, and Steve Earle show the scope of the people who Cash considered his friends. Mikal Gilmore's "The Man in Black" is a lengthy and thoughtful examination of the full scope of Cash's life and work. Robert Hilburn's 1973 interview "Nothing Can Take the Place of the Human Heart" was conducted in a Las Vegas hotel suite and shows Cash at the peak of his game. David Fricke's interview with producer Rick Rubin offers moving insight into the a remarkable, ten-year relationship between him and Cash that produced some of the finest albums of his career. Greg Kot's exhaustive annotated discography examines all of his classics and unearths hidden treasures among the hundreds of albums Cash recorded. Excerpts from Cash's autobiography let the man speak to his life in his own words. And editor Jason Fine's "A Day in the Life" is a visit with Cash at home less than a year before his death.

Johnny Cash left this world on September 12, 2003, but he left behind songs that charts the highs and lows of the human experience, and that speak to Americans young and old. Cash is the essential tribute to the Man in Black from Rolling Stone, a magazine that has long chronicled the life, career, and influence of this great American man.