Proposed to wife June Carter Cash over 30 times before she finally said "Yes".
Recorded entire albums live in Folsom and San Quentin Prisons, in front of highly receptive audiences of convicts.
Recorded over 1500 songs throughout his career.
Son-in-law of Mother Maybelle Carter.
Stated in an interview with Larry King that his favorite country singer is Dwight Yoakam.
Stepfather of Carlene Carter.
Stepfather-in-law of Nick Lowe.
The band Coldplay were supposed to record a song titled "Til Kingdom Comes" with him for their album "X&Y", but Cash died before that. They added the song as a hidden track and dedicated it to Cash. In their current "Twisted Logic Tour" they are playing this song in all the venues in addition to playing a cover of Johnny Cash's famous song "Ring of Fire". On the two nights(6 & 7 September 2005) at Madison Square Garden, New York they also dedicated the song "Til Kingdom Comes" to the victims of hurricane Katrina.
The scar to the right of his mouth was the result of a botched attempt to remove a cyst while he was serving in the Air Force in Germany.
The son of poor cotton farmers, whose economic and personal struggles during the Depression (when Johnny was growing up) shaped him as a person and inspired many of his songs.
The US Air Force would not accept "J.R." as a given name when he enlisted, so he became John R. Cash. He signed for Sun Records in 1955 (a year after his discharge) and had his name changed again ... to Johnny Cash
The video for "Hurt", from the album "The Man Comes Around" was voted greatest music video ever made accoridng to a panel assembled by the UK newspaper "The Guardian".
Was a friend of Elvis Presley.
Was often the subject of humorous sketches on "Saturday Night Live" (1975). He was usually portrayed by the late Phil Hartman and, later, has been occasionally played by Darrell Hammond. Coincidentally, both funnymen were best known for playing another famous Arkansas native, Bill Clinton.
Was ranked #1 of the 40 greatest men in country music.
When invited to perform at the White House for the first time in 1972, President Richard Nixon's office requested that he play "Okie from Muskogee" (a Merle Haggard song that negatively portrays youthful drug users and war protesters) and "Welfare Cadillac" (a Guy Drake song that derides the integrity of welfare recipients). It was reported that Cash refused to play either song because he apparently found both songs morally reprehensible. However he refused to play either song because he did not have enough time to learn the songs with the band before the performance. He ended up playing a series of his own more left-leaning,politically-charged songs, including "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (about a brave Native- American World War II veteran who was racially mistreated upon his return to Arizona) and "Man in Black" (which contains angry, anti-war lyrics, which Cash almost certainly wrote about the Vietnam War).