Author: Johnny Cash

Famous singer and songwriter Johnny Cash (1932–2003) was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, the son of poor Southern Baptist sharecroppers. He began playing guitar and writing songs at age 12. After high school, Cash joined the Air Force as a radio operator in Germany, serving until 1954. His early career, though marked by a struggle with drug and alcohol abuse, produced popular and enduring hits such as “I Walk the Line” (1956) and “Ring of Fire” (1963). Overcoming his drug addiction by the late 1960s, Cash continued to record a number of successful hits and albums, including At Folsom Prison (1968), “A Thing Called Love” (1972), and “One Piece at a Time” (1976). Cash was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Despite being diagnosed with a degenerative nerve disorder in 1997, he went on producing music until just before his death in 2003. Throughout his career, Cash won multiple Grammys was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1999).

Ragged Old Flag

Johnny Cash

American country singer Johnny Cash (1932–2003) released this spoken-word tribute to the flag (and its title album) in 1974 as a response to the widespread disillusionment that followed the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.