Johnny Cash : The Life

The definitive, intimate, no-holds-barred biography of Johnny Cash

Reissued as part of White Rabbit's Deep Cuts series with a Foreword from Lias Saoudi'Robert Hilburn displays a deeply felt affinity with his subject, illuminating Johnny Cash as the moral compass of country music' PATTI SMITHJOHNNY CASH: THE LIFE conveys the unvarnished truth about a musical icon, whose colourful career stretched from his days at Sun Records with Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to his remarkable, brave and deeply moving 'Hurt' video, aged sixty-nine. As the only journalist present at the legendary Folsom Prison concert in 1968, and one of the last to interview Cash and June Carter Cash before their deaths in 2003, Robert Hilburn writes with rare authority and intimacy. Drawing on decades of access and unseen material from Cash's inner circle, he reveals the remarkable highs and devastating lows of a man driven by faith, haunted by addiction and determined to create music that mattered. The result is a compelling, deeply human portrait of a country icon and rock pioneer whose influence endures. 'Hilburn's biography has the sort of immense scope and tremendous insight that comes from years of interviewing such a truthful, troubling subject' SUNDAY TIMES