Tragic Details About Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash's life was one of breathtaking highs and unfathomable lows. Despite his legendary talent and all the respect he commanded because of it, Cash was a man who frequently succumbed to his temptations - and tested the faith others had in him. This is the tragic, real-life story of Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash was the fourth of seven children, born February 26th, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas, to Ray and Carrie Cash. In his memoir, Johnny Cash: The Autobiography, Cash recalled that the house in which he was born didn't have any windows, and in winter, his mother had to hang blankets to keep them warm. The Depression hit the Cash family hard, but when Johnny was three years old, they moved to the Dyess Colony in northeast Arkansas, taking part in a federal farming program in which the family farmed 20 acres of cotton and other crops. When he was five, Johnny started working in the fields alongside his parents and siblings.

He started at first as a water boy, carrying drinking water out to his family. By the time he was eight, he was picking cotton with them, dragging a heavy canvas sack that started empty, but by the end of the day held 200 or more pounds of cotton. Cash wrote in his memoir:

"It wasn't complicated. You just parked the wagon at one end of the rows and went to it."

He said the work was exhausting and painful; he had back pain, even as a child, and the cotton bolls he picked were sharp, which cut his hands. Cash remembered:

"[W]e just worked and worked and worked."

Watch the video to learn more tragic details about Johnny Cash and his storied life.

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Early days | 0:17
Jack Cash | 1:20
Vivian Liberto | 2:39
Addiction | 3:45
Fighting the law | 5:02
Redemption | 6:19
June's death | 7:32
Legacy | 8:42