Surely his early Columbia recordings, such as "Songs of Our Soil" are in this tradition. The term "country & Western" did not even exist, as those two styles were decidedly different, and were represented by different artists. It was only later that the two became intertwined, and that was mostly because neither was big or strong enough to stand on its own. For example, Billboard did not even have a chart for the genre until 1964, and combined country and Western since there was not enough of either one individually to sustain by itself.

By the early 60s, especially due to his physical removal of himself from Tennessee and the South in so many ways, John most assuredly aligned himself with the "Western" part of that. His closest friend and mentor was Merle Travis, a Kentuckian by birth who had lived in California since the 1940s, whom he met while doing the Town Hall Party TV shows. It was Travis who wrote "Dark As a Dungeon," "Nine Pound Hammer," "Sixteen Tons," etc. These songs all first appeared on the 1946 album "Folk Songs of the Hills." Note it said "FOLK Songs." This album was unbelievably influential on Johnny Cash, and was the basis for his concept album "Blood, Sweat and Tears." The Travis album also included a version of "John Henry," just as "BS&T" did, as well as "Barbara Allen," from which John's much-recorded favorite "Ballad of Barbara" was derived. As such, all John's concept albums, especially "Ride This Train," are products of the Cash/Travis friendship. (Merle Travis moved from California to Nashville in 1969 to become the scriptwriter for the Ride This Train segments of John's TV show, and moved back in 1971 at the end of the show's run. When he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, it was John who made the presentation.)

But "folk music" had many elements. In addition to the rural, "yesteryear," Western component, exemplified by Travis and Tex Ritter, there were others. The social protest folk music which grew in the 60s, based in New York, was one, as was the "sweet folk" of people like Judy Collins, the Kingston Trio, the (original) Highwaymen, etc. What is amazing is that John moved between all these camps, belonging and at the same time not belonging (sound familiar?). But none could ever really call him one of "their own."

The godfather of the political "wing" was Pete Seeger, an associate of Woody Guthrie, who had formed the folk group The Weavers (with Lee Hays) in the 1940s. His left-wing politics got him called before the House UnAmerican Affairs Committee in 1955, where he refused to speak. He was blacklisted by the US media for years. In the 60s he was a vocal critic of the Viet Nam war, and became associated with younger folk singers such as Joan Baez. Baez was the queen of the New York folk movement. She became enthralled with another singer, Robert Zimmerman from Minnesota, and began a personal and professional affair with him in New York. Eventually, he eclipsed her and became folk's king as Bob Dylan. Dylan had a recording contract with Columbia, as did Johnny Cash, who was an admirer of his work. After the summer of 1963, when "Ring of Fire" made John a bonafide heavyweight at Columbia, he became a key figure in stopping the label from dropping Dylan from its roster. By this time, John's marriage to Vivian was effectively over, and he spent less and less time with his family in California. He began to haunt New York's Greenwich Village, becoming friends with Baez, Dylan, Baez's younger sister Mimi Farina and her husband Richard Farina. Other figures in this scene were Leonard Cohen, Peter LaFarge and Phil Ochs. It would later include Tim Hardin and Joni Mitchell. All of these folk artists are important to any history of Johnny Cash.

Richard Farina was a firebrand. He married Joan Baez's younger sister (he was 25, she was 18), although he shamelessly used the older sister to help further his own career. He, too, was called before the House UnAmerican Affairs Committee for his antiwar activities. He would die on his wife's 21st birthday, April 30, 1966 at age 28, in a motorcycle crash. In 1967, John and June Carter would record the folk song "Pack Up Your Sorrows" and include it as the B-side of the single "Jackson." The song was written and originally recorded by--Richard and Mimi Farina, as well as recorded by Judy Collins.

LaFarge was the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Indian activist Oliver LaFarge. Born in New York, he was greatly influenced by folk singers Cisco Houston and Josh White and in 1962 wrote "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" which appeared on his first album, also for Columbia. (Note again how history happens. Cash, Dylan and LaFarge all recording for Columbia at the same time. What if June Carter had not been booked on that show in Texas in the winter of 1961? What if John's fascination with folk music and its origins had not led him to June's family? What if, therefore, he never heard "Ring of Fire" and had, instead, been dropped by Columbia in 1963 due to poor record sales? Where would Dylan have been if he had not had an "in-house" champion at Columbia in 1963?) He lived in the same apartment building as Dylan in New York (as did Ramblin' Jack Elliott). He was a contributing editor to the radical magazine "Broadside." Was it any wonder, then, that "country music" was apoplectic when Johnny Cash recorded not just "Ira Hayes" (on March 5, 1964) but (almost) AN ALBUM FULL of LaFarge's Indian protest songs, including "Custer," which condemned the fallen, white general (he was by then only a colonel, but anyway...) as a racist killer? Country radio blacklisted Cash's recording, prompting his full-page attack on "country radio" (again, sound familiar?). LaFarge, who was of Pima Indian decent, like Ira Hayes, killed himself in New York on October 27, 1964.

The "Ring of Fire" album had been thrown together to capitalize on the success of the single--itself very UNcountrylike despite its genesis as a love song written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore and originally recorded by Anita Carter in 1962. The Mexican horns were decidedly anti-Nashville. Because John's recording output had dwindled in the face of his health and personal problems and his precarious tenure with Columbia, the label had to pull most of the material for that album from its vaults (some as far back as 1959), Since it stayed on the charts well into 1964 (in fact, it was #1 on that first Billboard "Country & Western" chart), John's evolving folk output would not come to the forefront until 1964, with the recording of the LaFarge-inspired album. But it certainly did not end there. "Orange Blossom Special" was a folk album through and through. Its title song was written by the Rouse Brothers as an ode to a railroad train that used to run up and down the eastern seaboard (Note: My good friend, the talented and prolific Randy Noles, who posts to this board, has written a book devoted to this song. He is awaiting its publication as we speak, and has promised to let us all know how to get it. He is the undisputed expert on this folk song.) Most importantly for this story, it included three Dylan songs. Given the raging protests over the war, and Dylan's prominent anti-war voice, this was another dramatic statement by John, coming on the heels, of course, of "Bitter Tears" and his high-profile appearance at the Newport Folk Festival.

Phil Ochs was probably the most vocal anti-war critic on the Greenwich Village scene. Very doctrinaire, he considered anyone who strayed from the "party line" to be a traitor. So, when Baez and Dylan "toned down" some of their rhetoric in order to achieve a broader audience, and in fact hit the big time, he was livid, and broke ranks with his former comrades (he probably saw it as them breaking ranks with him). This foreshadowed Dylan's being ostracized from the folk movement in 1965 when he "went electric" and used amplified musical instruments at the Newport Folk Festival, and was met with boos. This prompted Johnny Cash to take out another ad in Billboard to proclaim, 'Shut up and let him sing!" You see, John charted his own path. The traditional folk artists could not consider him "theirs" despite the obvious ties; neither could the anti-war folkies, who saw him recording traditional Americana along with songs by their icons; certainly the country folks couldn't either, as John had never even recorded a "country" album to this point. Ochs, for one, could not contain himself. By 1970 when John had hit the big time and had his own TV show, Ochs considered this to be an ultimate betrayal. "Television ruined Johnny Cash," he said, speaking as only a true beiliever can when talking about an apostate. By 1976, the folk movement was long dead, the war was over, Dylan was an icon, John was recording stuff like "Ragged Old Flag." After being booed off a stage and unwilling or unable to change, seeing his whole raison d'etre gone, Ochs hanged himself on April 9, 1976.

Not a folk singer? Remember who was on the first episode of John's TV show? Not only Bob Dylan, but Joni Mitchell, another New York folkie (albeit by way of Canada). When John insisted on smashing the blacklist and had Pete Seeger on the show, ABC was beside itself. And I have previously written about the dramatic moment when John, on the stage of Ryman Auditorium and on national TV, sang Dylan's "Blowin' In the Wind." This was an unmistakeable message. The conservative Southern audience was stunned at first (I have a video of this event), then exploded into a spontaneous standing ovation. It was a turning point in society's view of the Silent Majority, I believe.

Above, I referred to the song "Pack Up Your Sorrows." The A-side of that song, the Grammy-winning "Jackson," is now firmly entrenched in country mainstream. But that's not how it started. It was written by folk singer Billy Edd Wheeler (with Gaby Rogers), a West Virginia native who was living in--New York. Wheeler also wrote "Reverend Mr. Black" for the Kingston Trio--a group which embodied the third element of the folk scene, the "nice folk."

He was championed by the Trio, and by Judy Collins, who arrived in Greenwich Village in 1963. John learned of the song while in New York, and he and June had been singing it for a couple of years before they recorded it. That entire release ("Jackson"/"Pack Up Your Sorrows") was a folk single. Indeed, the album which was built around those songs ("Carryin' On With Johnny Cash and June Carter"--the title itself was rather suggestive, as they had been "carryin' on," even while he was technically still married--included a Dylan song, as well as two Ray Charles--Ray Charles!!--songs.

After Peter LaFarge died, and Dylan moved up, Jack Elliott--Ramblin' Jack Elliott--remained in New York and carried on the folk heritage. He wrote song for (and appeared briefly on) John's 1966 "Everybody Loves a Nut." He became friends with Oregon native Tim Hardin whose breakthrough albums were released in 1966 and 1967, and included "If I Were a Carpenter" and "Reason To Believe," both of which he wrote. The first album (called "Tim Hardin") included John Sebastian of the folk group the Lovin' Spoonful on the backing band). Of course, Bobby Darin made "Carpenter" a pop hit. While a guest on John's TV show, Elliott brought the song to John's attention (he had himself recorded it), and John and June won their second Grammy together for their version. "Reason" became Hardin's signature song and was recorded by many others, including folk singer Scott MacKenzie ("San Francisco"), Rod Stewart, and John, on 1975's "John R. Cash." That album featured a single release of "Lady Came From Baltimore," another Hardin song done on that first album and covered by Scott Walker in 1969. There is controversy about that song. Some say that its heroine, Susan Moore, was Tim Hardin's wife, although her real name was Morss, and she was from Vermont. Others say the song was written in Greenwich Village before he knew her, and the name was a coincidence. In 1970 Hardin recorded an album for Columbia called "Suite for Susan Moore." It was produced by Gary Klein, the same man who would produce "John R. Cash." He would also record a very powerful version of Leonard Cohen's "Bird On the Wire." Hardin would appear at Woodstock, but descended into a sad world and died December 29, 1980 in Los Angeles at age 39, of a heroin overdose. It was never established if it was intentional or not, but it is said that he had earned $22 million in his lifetime, and lost every penny of it--along with his wife and family--by the time he died.

This was world in which Johnny Cash travelled in the 60s. It was not the world of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Nashville's lower Broadway. It was the counter-culture, politics, drugs, social statements. As I said, he moved through all this, but was never inside it. He could be friends with anti-war protesters, attacked by the KKK, dismissed by "country," arrested for drug possession, but he could also marry into the Carter Family, perform at the White House and be accepted by coffee houses and country fairs alike. This is unique. I cannot think of a single artist ever whoever could have gone from rockabilly to folkie to country music elder statesman and perform all those roles with intelligence and integrity. That is John Cash.

Mark