Johnny Cash: The Life of an American Icon Review

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(More customer reviews)As a lifelong Cash fan, a book like this was a long time coming during Cash's own lifetime. Overall, while adding some interesting insight into some aspects of Cash's life and career, it's a missed opportunity to clarify many misconceptions about the life and legacy of Johnny Cash and only supports and adds to the inaccurate misconceptions by obviously failing to correct them using more thorough research. Miller tends to rely way too much on previosuly published material by other writers that was just as inaccurate then as it is now - facts any serious Cash fan would easily be able to point out. How anyone can justify a 372 pg. biography without including even one sourced footnote - something a high school student is required to include in any term paper - is beyond comprehension. In comparison, Peter Guralnick's brilliant 1994 biography on Elvis, "LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS," included over 40 pages of notes and acknowledged a list of hundreds of people who contributed personal and professional input. Miller, however, relies way too much on the comments of only a very select few directly involved in Cash's life and career which comes across more as rumor or innuendo rather than fact. Hopefully, the next major Cash biography will be written by someone more able and interested in using accurate facts. If you're looking to read a definitive Johnny Cash biogrpahy, you'll have to wait because this isn't it.

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Johnny Cash is the only artist to have been elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Songwriters Hall of Fame. His hits include "I Walk the Line", "Ring of Fire", and "A Boy Named Sue". By 1969, he had sold more records than The Beatles. The author interviews Johnny's brother Tommy, who provides insights into their childhood as well as a look at life on the road with The Johnny Cash Show. The book also includes interviews with Johnny's long-time manager Lou Robin, his producer since the early days Jack Clement, and artists Sandy Kelly, Narvel Felts, George Hamilton IV and V. Miller also carried out research at the Country Music Foundation in Nashville and talked to DJs Bill Black and Dick Barrie.

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