The Man Called Cash: The Life, Love and Faith of an American Legend

I read this after I read the autobiography 'Cash' and found this to be much more complete and comprehensive! A truely engaging read, it is well researched and well written! Just get it and you'll know what I mean!

I think Kristofferson summed up Cash about as well as anyone I have heard.This book is an outstanding look at the life of Cash.I have read and wrote reviews on several,but I really feel this is the best.Some might feel that Turner spends too much time talking about Cash's Faith and his God;but to really understand Cash you must understand this part of him.Without his beliefs,there would be no Cash,and he would be the first to tell you.Not only that,anyone who really knew Cash would tell you that his Faith was his greatest gift ;bar none.Reading this book you will also learn that Faith was also June's greatest gift. Turner seems to put his finger on what made Cash the Legend he became.I finished High School about the same time as Cash and was always a big fan of his.Sure, there were some times when things were not pretty.A couple of months ago ,I was at a table with the owner of a large music store here in Toronto.This man is about eighty and knows just about all there is to know about the music scene here in Toronto.I said,"you must have met Cash a few times?" "Sure,many times.I remember one morning when I was opening the store,he was sleeping in the entrance."Like I said there were times like that,but they were greatly overshadowed by the great scenes Cash provided throughout his career;right up to the end.From the time I First saw him live in Montreal,in 1969, with the Statlers; to the day we all saw him at June's funeral, I never tired of him or June. This book leaves you thinking that we never ever saw anyone even remotely like him and that is why he was so much admired by so many,both in the music business as well as those who enjoyed and loved him so well.I watched his last appearence on the Larry King Show,and it was amazing how compfortable he was with the questions Larry asked.No doubt about it, Larry was completely overwhelmed by Cash's faith. We are all the poorer because he is no longer with us;but at least we still have his music to enjoy for many years to come. "If America as a nation could speak...it would sound something like Johnny Cash.His voice was America's voice,just as America's voice was his." Turner has managed to bare the soul of Cash to all of us.So if you want to get to know what "The Man Called Cash " was all about,I strongly recommend you read this book.

Johnny Cash was a man of baffling contradictions. Turner relays an event that is illustrative: Cash goes shooting and wounds a crow. He is so moved with compassion for the bird that he goes to great lengths to nurse it back to health. Turner writes, "...it encapsulated Cash's contradictions. Here was a man, though capable of destruction, who became overwhlemed with the desire to repair what he had destroyed; a nonviolent man who had a love affair with guns; an artist who could cause suffering and tehn turn that suffering into art..." Turner tackles this wild, passionate, brilliant enigma and gets him to tell his story. It is everything you;d want in a biography: infromative, disciplined, crisp, fast-paced. Turner is a seasoned music journalist, with previous books on the Beatles, Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye, and the hymn Amazing grace. He has written for the London Times, Rolling Stone, and Mojo. And the quality of his writing is excellent. So much music journalism -- take for example Dave Marsh's awful biographies of Springsteen etc. -- is so earnest, so bloated with self-importance, so cheesy. Not Turner. He clearly is a Cash fan, this is the "authorized" bio., but he has a cool maturity and grace that makes this a standard for future music bios. Turner is especially insightful on Johnny Cash's complex Christian faith. Must have book -- read it before Dave Urbanski's decent The Man Comes Around or even Cash's autobio.

Steve Turner has done an extraordinary job of capturing the essence of Johnny Cash...his spirit, his words, his brutal honesty, his wry humor, his self-effacing humility, his stalwart determination, his artistry, his sensitivity, his stubbornness, his righteousness, his sinfulness...his living contradictions. The book often feels as if Johnny himself wrote it, except that Turner is able to provide a certain level of objectivity and perspective...and praise...that Johnny himself could not have done. At times, the book is so unflinchingly honest that the reader may be tempted to turn away...but believe me, you won't...you can't. There are many stories in this book that are heartbreaking, moving, and inspiring, just like Johnny himself was. Many books and articles have been written about "The Man in Black," but Steve Turner has given us something more--a document of Johnny's soul. It ain't always pretty, but it's for dang sure a beautiful thing.

With few exceptions, what passes for country music these days is a rehashing of Eighties rock, Journey with fiddles and steel guitars, performed by a standardized collection of Barbies and Kens with interchangeable heads. You know something is wrong when the stuff that actually sounds like country music is labeled "alternative country." The soul is missing from country music, having been replaced by a marketing strategy. Cowboy hat? Check. Pick-up truck? Check. Yep, it's country. No it isn't. And this brings us to Johnny Cash. He was the real deal, one of the last of his breed. If the man's body of work isn't enough to convince you, you'll find ample proof in Steve Turner's THE MAN CALLED CASH, the authorized biography of country music's legendary Man in Black. Turner draws on the personal recollections of an army of Cash's friends and family to present a detailed portrait of a complex, flawed, flesh-and-bone human being. Don't let that "authorized biography" designation get in the way. This is a warts-and-all look at Cash's remarkable life and equally remarkable music. In many instances Turner's sources provide conflicting versions of anecdotes from various stages in Cash's career. In the delta between the various recollections of events, something both sobering and wonderful emerges --- a realization that, regardless of status or celebrity, we are all ultimately defined less by what we actually do than by how we are remembered. Memories are informed by context. In Johnny Cash's case, as presented in this book, that context is defined by Cash's ability to connect on a profound level with people, in both his personal relationships and in the creation and performance of his music. But THE MAN CALLED CASH is no more an attempt to whitewash Cash's life and career than it is a superficial tell-all. Rather, it is an honest look at an honest man, an artist who drew equally on his demons, his faith, his joy, and his pain to produce music that spoke of and to working men and women on a visceral level. Throughout his career Johnny Cash put his soul into his music, without affectation (one would be hard pressed to find a photo of Cash in a cowboy hat). In channeling the memories of so many whose lives intersected with Johnny Cash's, Steve Turner has managed to put Cash's soul on paper. Read this book if you care anything at all about American popular music, and be reminded of what country music is really about. --- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart