Johnny Cash Early career
 The Man in Black was born J. R. Cash in Kingsland, Arkansas, to Ray and Carrie Cash, and raised in Dyess, Arkansas. He was reportedly given the name J. R. because his parents could not agree on a name, only on initials. Giving children such names was not an uncommon practice at the time. When he enlisted in the United States Air Force, the military would not accept initials as his name, so he adopted John R. Cash as his legal name. Then when signing with Sun Records in 1955, he took Johnny Cash as his stage name. His friends and in-laws generally called him John, while his blood relatives often continued to call him by his birth name, J. R.
Cash was one of seven children: Reba Hancock, Jack, Joanne Cash-Yates, Tommy, Roy, and Louise Cash Garrett. His younger brother Tommy Cash also became a successful country artist. By age five, J.R. was working in the cotton fields, singing along with his family as they worked.
The family farm was flooded on at least one occasion, which later inspired him to write the song Five Feet High And Rising. His family's economic and personal struggles during the Depression shaped him as a person and inspired many of his songs, especially those about other people facing similar difficulties.
Cash was very close to his brother Jack, who was two years older. In 1944, Jack was pulled into a whirling table saw in the mill where he worked, and almost cut in two. He suffered for over a week before he died. There was some talk that Jack's death might not have been accidental; a local bully was seen running from the shop with blood on his shirt, shortly before Jack was found. However, Cash did not discuss that theory in his autobiography, nor the report in some circles that Cash made investigation of the incident a personal obsession. Cash often spoke of the horrible guilt he felt over this incident. According to Cash: The Autobiography, his father was away that morning, but he and his mother, and Jack himself, all had premonitions or a sense of foreboding about that day, and his mother urged Jack to skip work and go fishing with his brother. Jack insisted on working, as the family needed the money. On his deathbed, Jack said he had visions of Heaven and angels. Decades later, Cash spoke of looking forward to meeting his brother in Heaven. He wrote that he had seen his brother many times in his dreams, and that Jack always looked two years older than whatever age Cash himself was at that moment. It is widely thought that the dark side of his world view was shaped by this traumatic event.
Cash's early memories were dominated by gospel music and radio. Taught by his mother and a childhood friend, Johnny began playing guitar and writing songs as a young boy. In high school he sang on a local radio station. Decades later, he would release an album of traditional gospel songs, called My Mother's Hymn Book. Traditional Irish music that he heard weekly on the Jack Benny radio program, performed by Dennis Day, influenced him greatly.
Cash enlisted in the United States Air Force. After basic training at Lackland Air Force Base and technical training at Brooks Air Force Base, both in San Antonio, Texas, Cash was assigned to a U.S. Air Force Security Service unit at Landsberg, Germany.
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