Making the Book

Patrick Carr knew three months ago that Johnny Cash had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.As Cash's collaborator on his autobiography, Carr had spent many hours in conversation with the music legend in the past year. It was in theirlast conversation before the book was sent to the publisher that Cash told Carr what the doctors had said."My remark to him was, 'Well, that's good. Now you know what it is, so you can do something about it,'°" Carr recalled."I have a sister with Parkinson's, so I knew all the therapies and treatments that are available. He was hopeful, too."Carr said he hadn't talked with Cash since he announced that was canceling a tour to promote "Cash: The Autobiography." With the cancellations, Carr said he didn't know when he would see Cash again. What he does feel confident about is that Cash will be back on stage as soon as the Parkinson's is stabilized. Carr speaks with the authority of a journalist who has interviewed Cash at regular intervals for a quarter-century. As contributing editor of Country Music Magazine and writer for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Village Voice, Playboy and other publications, Carr wrote several articles based on interviews with Cash. However, those usually lasted an hour at most, Carr said. For the book, he spent days with Cash at his homes in Tennessee, Jamaica andFlorida, and he traveled with him as he played concerts in Texas and on the West Coast. For the final two months of writing, Cash called Carr nearly every day from the road to share things he wanted included in the book. "He'd call me from London, from Michigan, from Sweden," Carr said. And while they talked, Carr was assembling pieces of the book to meet an early-August deadline.

The book was the result of the merging of two ideas, Carr said. First, Cash had been urged to write a new autobiography to fill in the 22 years since his first autobiography, "Man in Black." "I was coming from the other direction," Carr said. "I had decided I wanted to do a biography." Carr got in touch with Cash, told him of his plans and asked for his cooperation. Cash called Carr and suggested that they work as co-authors of the second autobiography. There were things Carr wanted to know about Cash in more detail. There were stories Cash wanted to tell, even some that he already had told in "Man in Black." "I think he thought 'Man in Black' didn't go into his feelings - what was going on inside him," Carr said. In this book, he confesses that it still is difficult to talk about his first marriage and the things he missed when his three daughters were young because he was on the road constantly. Carr said there was no topic he brought up that Cash refused to respond to. However, there were some things that Cash didn't want in the book, such as "where he had negative feelings about somebody or a low opinion of somebody or some event." Over the 10 months that the two collaborated, Carr said he got to know Cash as a quick wit with a well-developed sense of the absurd. "He sings to himself all the time, too," Carr said. "He's always humming or singing." Cash's autobiography touches on such topics as his brother's death at age 14, his relationships with his ex-sons-in-law, his attempt to ease Faron Young's depression, the lessons he learned from Johnny Horton, and his friendship with the young Elvis Presley.

There are many stories from Cash's colorful life, and they are told in his voice. Carr said Cash would correct his manuscript when he thought the wording wasn't true to his own. Carr said he wishes he could have written a book twice as long (this one is 310 pages), because he knows there is plenty of material in Cash's 65 years.