Johnny Cash Early career
 Later in 1954, the couple moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he sold appliances, while studying to be a radio announcer. At night, he played with guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant. Perkins and Grant were known as the Tennessee Two. Cash worked up the courage to visit the Sun Records studio, hoping to get a recording contract. After auditioning for Sam Phillips, singing mostly gospel songs, Phillips told him to go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell. Cash eventually won over Phillips with new songs delivered in his early frenetic style. His first recordings at Sun, Hey Porter and Cry Cry Cry, were released in 1955 and met with reasonable success on the country hit parade.
Cash's next record, Folsom Prison Blues, made the country Top 5, and I Walk the Line became No. 1 on the country charts, also making it into the pop charts Top 20. Following I Walk the Line was Johnny Cash's Home of the Blues, recorded in July 1957. In 1957, Cash became the first Sun artist to release a long-playing album. Although he was Sun's most consistently best-selling and prolific artist at that time, Cash felt constrained by his contract with the small label. Elvis Presley had already left Sun, and Phillips was focusing most of his attention and promotion on Jerry Lee Lewis. The following year, Cash left the label to sign a lucrative offer with Columbia Records, where his single Don't Take Your Guns to Town would become one of his biggest hits.
In the early 60s, Cash toured with the legendary Carter Family, which by this time regularly included Mother Maybelle's daughters, Anita, June and Helen. June later recalled admiring Johnny from afar, during these tours.
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