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For the Record

A few thoughts from

the Man in Black

Drugs:

Drugs are so deceptive. It's like a demon that says, "Hey, I'm so pretty, look at me, I'11 make you feel better! Take me." And I do. It's a battle. I've talked to those pills. There'd be six of 'em and I'd say, "I'm just gonna take one of you today, " and I- could almost hear them saying, "No, you're gonna take all of us. " 'Cause when you're on that stuff one is too many and a thousand is not enough.
-JRC 1988

Cash on Today's Country :

You know, Sam had vision. We need more of that today. I miss the tried and-true and the dyed-in-the-wool. I guess that's a typical comment from an artist my age. Glory for the new artists, great. But country radio doesn't program hardly anybody over 40. Country music is about tradition. And they're Iosing that tradition. In my mind, anyway.
-JRC 1994

The Cash Sound :

Nashville in 1955 was grinding out all these country records. If you took the voice off, all the tracks sounded the same to me. Fiddle or piano would take the first half, the steel guitar would take the second half or vice versa. All the arrangements were calculated and predictable. Well, it's kind of that way with my music, but it's my music. It's not done to try to sound like somebody else in Nashville or in rock or whatever.
-JRC 1988

The Klan:

It's good to know who hates you, and it's good to be hated by the right people. The Klan is despicable, filthy, dirty, unkind. It's a shame sometimes that we have all these freedoms, 'cause freedom allows them to exist. I'd love to see them all thrown in prison.
-JRC 1988

Greatest Honor:

Well, being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame was the greatest honor of my career. It would be for any country singer. Nothing would approach that honor for me. But being inducted into the Rock'n' Roll Hall of Fame was a real honor for me since, as you say, I'm mainly thought of as a country singer. So, I was very pleased. It shows that rock 'n' roll knows its roots. And it shows that respect for people in one field of music towards those in another is a living thing. I think it was a tribute to the broader influence of country music on rock as well as an honor to me personally.
-JRC 1992

Change:

Change is the whole process of life. Change is for the most part healthy, of course. We made a lot of mistakes in the sixties. We'd like to just erase that whole war from our history books. That would really be nice, except you can't forget the ones that died and every time the war is brought up, you think of something that brings it home. Maybe Vietnam has taught us a hard lesson to not be involved in foreign wars. Maybe that's the lesson we've learned. I hope we have. Then all those things that happened in the sixties were solidifying and strengthening for this country.
-JRC 1973

Prison Reform :

People say, 'well what about the victims, the people that suffer you're always talking about the prisoners; what about the victims?' Well, the point I want to make is that's what I've always been concerned aboutthe victims. If we make better men out of the men in prison, then we've got less crime on the streets, and my family and yours is safer when they come out. If the prison system is reformed, if the men are reformed, if they are rehabilitated, then there's less crime and there's less victims.
-JRC 1973

Personal Life:

Well, when I'm on stage I feel like I'm really a complete person because that's what I feel like I do best and that's what I'm most alive and happy doing, performing. Any other part of me might be interesting to the people that like that image on the stage. Yes, I think it's realistic; it's justifiable, the interviews, the pictures of the life of the man that lives off stage. And I think in most cases it's an honest picture, like right here, because it's really the way I feel about things; when I sit down and talk to you and tell you about these things, it's the way I feel.
-JRC 1973

Being an original:

I think some of the old-timers in the business had a lot more vision about what this is all about than some of the people who were running the business. I was encouraged to do it the way I felt it by people like Ernest Tubb. He told me, "You're different, you sound different, you act different, you look different; if that's the way you honestly feel it, then that's the way you want to do it, and don't let anybody change you."
-JRC 1994

"Indian in the white man's camp" :

And I guess I've always been sort of an outsider. It's been a good five years since I was asked to come down and do the Grand Ole Opry. It's not that I'm waiting for them to ask me, it's just that that's the country music community's attitude here towards me.
-JRC 1994

The Cash Sound:

We had a steel guitar player working with us, but he was afraid to go in the recording studio and I guess maybe it was lucky for us that he didn't because The Tennessee Two came up with a sound that was kinda unique. I think a steel guitar would've taken us more toward Nashville than what was happening up there, so we recorded Hey Porter." -JRC1980