Cash

Yesterday would have been Johnny Cash’s 94th birthday. A couple of months before his death in 2003, Mike Craver, Bill Hicks, Jim Watson and I crossed paths with him at the Carter Fold in Hiltons, Va. It was a night I will never forget.

June 21, 2003 was set to be the first show I ever played with Mike, Bill, and Jim, founding members of the Red Clay Ramblers. I was excited as I could be about that, but things took a surreal turn when Watson called me the week of the show, saying, “Janette Carter called and told me that Johnny Cash is visiting Hiltons, and wants to come ‘play for June’s people.’” June being June Carter Cash, who had died the month before. Janette told Watson that Cash would do a short set, then we would take the stage.

As we drove up the A.P. Carter Highway to the Carter Fold the afternoon of the show, we knew that word had spread about his appearance there, because cars lined the road on both sides as far as the eye could see. Shortly before 7 p.m., a black Mercedes drove right up to the side door. Cash was helped out of the car and onto the stage. I remember how frail he looked, and how shocked I was at that, because he had been singing so strong on his projects with Rick Rubin.

Cash took a seat in a chair in the center of the stage. On either side, his band, led by his son John Carter Cash, began playing “I Walk the Line.” After he sang it, he held up his hospital-bruised hands toward Heaven. “That was for you, baby,” he said. Between the songs that followed, he talked about the love he had for June, and how it hurt to lose her. We were all standing in the door of the green room watching him preach a sermon about love. Cameras were flashing, and people were calling out to him. At one point, someone all the way in the back yelled, “We love you, John!” He stopped, looked at them and said, just how you would expect Johnny Cash to say it, “I love you, too.”

After six numbers or so, his son and other band members helped him stand, and he was lifted down off the edge of the stage. “Please let us get him to the car,” Janette implored the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea. He finally got settled in the backseat, and the crowd watched in silence as he was driven away. We all knew that we had witnessed something rare and beautiful. Daniel Coston was there that night as well, and here is a photo he took of Cash, looking like a holy man, baptised by the fires of love and loss.