Johnny Cash's 1986 novel Man in White, 10 years in the making, gave a fictionalized account of St. Paul the Apostle. The noted early Christian missionary and reputed author of about a dozen epistles in the New Testament: Saul of Tsaurus was on his way to Damascus intent upon laying waste to as many Christians as he could find when he was converted to the cause by a blinding white vision. Saul became Paul, who then devoted his life to Jesus Christ.
Some have gone so far as to cite that line as being a progenitor of gangsta rap. If these pundits mean to suggest the "sampling" of another artistic achievement without permission, they might be on the right track.
In fact, Johnny Cash's lyrics often match, word for word, rhyme for rhyme, and sometimes line for line, lyrics written for the same traditional music two years earlier by jazz musician Gordon Jenkins. Jenkins did not react in 1956, but following the tune's 1968 re-release as part of the live At Folsom Prison album, he evidently had enough and filed a lawsuit citing copyright infringement. According to Jenkins' son Bruce, the author of Goodbye: In Search of Gordon Jenkins, Cash's reps were quick to resolve the matter out of court for a sum believed to be $75,000.
Johnny Cash deserves the benefit of the doubt here, not because of his iconic status, but because throughout his career he never hesitated to give appropriate credit and he'd even — as was the case with Folsom inmate Glen Sherley — go out of his way to secure the proper royalties contract for others.
Just a few weeks before the Air Force shipped him off to Germany, Johnny Cash met Catholic schoolgirl Vivian Liberto at a San Antonio roller-skating rink. They fell pretty hard for each other, a situation made even more intense by their separation over the next three years.
In that time, Johnny Cash proposed marriage (by phone) and the two exchanged an astonishing 10,000 pages of love letters. Many of these pages were published for the first time in 2006, when Liberto wrote her take on the nasty love triangle between her, Johnny Cash and June Carter (as portrayed in the 2005 film Walk The Line). Incidentally, Liberto claims that Cash didn't pursue June Carter at all (as the Joaquin Phoenix film portrays), but that it was the other way around — Carter relentlessly pursued Cash.
Much like Tupac Shakur, Johnny Cash's career as a musician has only been slightly inconvenienced by his death. While alive, Cash was one of the most prolific recording artists in history, and his late-in-life collaboration with pioneer record producer Rick Rubin only furthered that tradition and reputation.
As we have already noted, the ultimate motif in the life and music of Johnny Cash has dealt with trying to do the right thing in the face of so many tempting alternatives. This struggle with conscience is a universal human condition, open to endless examination and reinterpretation. Cash's elevation to iconic status ensures his relative immortality, although he will probably come and go with the trends, the publication of a new biography or a controversial movie. Either way, Johnny Cash isn't going anywhere.