Elvis Presley 'Introduced' Me To Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash & Elvis

Following is an essay written by June Carter Cash telling of how she came to meet Johnny Cash. The story is largely about June and Johnny Cash but contains a very interesting story of how Elvis 'introduced' June to Johnny Cash. (First paragraph).

We hope you enjoy the story.

He was stooped down on one knee and grasping a guitar trying to tune it to somewhere near the correct pitch to make a correct cord ring - 'Everybody knows where you go when the sun goes down, Ah-ummm - A - ummm' and he'd strike the guitar again. Plink: plunk: 'A-ummm ...' What are you trying to do, I asked. 'I'm trying to tune this blame guitar, honey, and I'm trying to sing like Johnny Cash'.

Who is Johnny Cash I asked Elvis Presley, and I grabbed the guitar away from him. Mother Maybelle would never let me or Elvis go on the stage with a guitar that was that far out of tune! What's the a-um-a-um for? 'That's what drives the girls crazy' Elvis said. 'Cash don't have to move a muscle, he just sings and stands there'. I don't know this Johnny Cash I said, and Elvis said: 'Oh you'll know Cash. The whole world will know Johnny Cash. He's a friend of mine'. So the whole tour, my first with Elvis, we went into small cafes all throughout the south and Elvis played Johnny Cash on the jukebox while I fought off the girls trying to get through Scotty, Bill and I to Elvis. And the thing I remember the very best was the voice of Johnny Cash singing 'You're gonna cry, cry, cry and you'll cry alone!'. Somehow this low voice just penetrated my heart and spoke to my loneliness, for I had no lover in my life and there was a terrific loneliness in my soul. I had visions of myself screaming 'Hey Porter' and riding a lonesome train home.

Johnny Cash & Elvis

I had been working at the Grand Ole Opry since 1950 with my mother Maybelle and sisters, Helen, Anita and Chester Atkins. I would rush home from a tour on Saturday nights back to the same routine of loneliness and this particular night, I found myself backstage trying to tune my guitar humming Ah-ummm Ah-Ummm, when all of a sudden, there he was! The voice was the same. Johnny Cash took me by the hand and said, 'I've always wanted to meet you'. The strangest feeling came over me. I was afraid to look him in the eyes. It was one of the things I did best. I never stammered and still found myself not able to say much of anything. I think I finally blurted out - I feel like I know you already. Elvis plays you on the jukebox all the time and he can't tune his guitar without humming 'Cry, Cry, Cry' Now he's got me doing it.

'Why don't you work with me on the road sometime?' I'd like to I said. Hey, bring me one of your records. I've become a real fan.

I can't remember anything else we talked about, except his eyes. Those black eyes that shone like agates. I only glanced into them because I believed that I would be drawn into his soul and I would never have been able to walk away, had he asked me to go with him. I felt that he was the most handsome man I'd ever met. I saw him take six encores that night. He had a command of his performance that I had never seen before. Just a guitar and a base and a gentle kind of presence that made not only me, but whole audiences become his followers. I walked away from him that evening.

Cash & President Nixon

The next time I saw Johnny Cash, he brought me his new record and we did find the time to talk together. Both of us afraid to look, and both afraid to see the lost and lonely souls that we were. For the next few years, I never saw him where I did not remember when, where and who he was with. John told me that after seeing him on stage that very first time in Nashville, he knew he was going to marry me. I guess neither of us ever forgot that. We walked away from each other and we both made some bad choices in our travels. I wondered if he has as hard a time with my blue eyes as I had with his, and after he wrote 'I Still Miss Someone' I think he might have really looked.

It took such a long time of praying and of walking away when I knew from first looking at him that his hurt was as great as mine, and from the depths of my despair, I stepped up to feel the fire and there is no way to be in that kind of hell, no way to extinguish a flame that burns, burns, burns. And so came the idea for the song 'Ring Of Fire'. I was ashamed to tell John that I had always cared, that I couldn't get him off my mind. Out of the loneliness came one song after another. There was so much hurt for both of us. And hurt for those we loved that only God could have pulled us out of that 'Ring Of Fire'. For the last 35 years, I have been able to look into those black steel eyes and feel his love, and realize he always cared.

Elvis Talks about Johnny Cash : Elvis Interview: December 3, 1956

'I never had a better time than yesterday afternoon when I dropped into Sam Phillips' place'.

'It was what you might call a barrelhouse of fun. Carl Perkins was in a recording session and he had one that's going to hit as hard as Blue Suede Shoes'. 'Johnny Cash dropped in. Jerry Lee Lewis was there too, and then I stopped by..' Elvis headed for the piano and did a Fats Domino impersonation of Blueberry Hill. The joint was really rocking before we got through. Elvis on Jerry Lee.

'That boy can go', he said. 'I think he has a great future ahead of him'.

Johnny Cash was one of the most imposing and influential figures in post-World War II country music. With his deep, resonant baritone and spare, percussive guitar, he had a basic, distinctive sound. Cash didn't sound like Nashville, nor did he sound like honky tonk or rock & roll. He created his own subgenre, falling halfway between the blunt emotional honesty of folk, the rebelliousness of rock & roll, and the world weariness of country. Cash's career coincided with the birth of rock & roll, and his rebellious attitude and simple, direct musical attack shared a lot of similarities with rock. However, there was a deep sense of history -- as he would later illustrate with his series of historical albums -- that kept him forever tied with country. And he was one of country music's biggest stars of the '50s and '60s, scoring well over 100 hit singles.

Like Elvis, Johnny Cash started with Sun Records and its founder, Sam Phillips, in 1955. (Elvis in 1954)

Buy Million-Dollar Quartet

Johnny Cash Remembers Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley ..... is Johnny Cash
Interview with Sam Phillips
Marilyn Evans and the Million Dollar Quartet
Interview with Carl Perkins
Elvis Presley's Sun Recordings

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