[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 126 (Monday, September 15, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11483-S11485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 68--HONORING THE LIFE OF JOHNNY CASH

  Mr. ALEXANDER (for himself, Mr. Frist, Mrs. Lincoln, and Mr. Pryor) 
submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was ordered held 
at the desk.

                            S. Con. Res. 68

       Whereas Johnny Cash was one of the most influential and 
     recognized voices of American music throughout the world, 
     whose influence spanned generations and musical genres;
       Whereas Johnny Cash was born on February 26, 1932, in 
     Kingsland, Arkansas, and moved with his family at the age of 
     3 to Dyess, Arkansas, where the family farmed 20 acres of 
     cotton and other seasonal crops;
       Whereas those early years in the life of Johnny Cash 
     inspired songs such as ``Look at Them Beans'' and ``Five Feet 
     High and Rising'';
       Whereas Johnny Cash eventually released more than 70 albums 
     of original material in his lifetime, beginning with his 
     first recording in 1955 with the Tennessee Two;
       Whereas Johnny Cash was a devoted husband to June Carter 
     Cash, a father of 5 children, and a grandfather;
       Whereas Johnny Cash received extensive recognition for his 
     contributions to the musical heritage of the Nation, 
     including membership in the Grand Old Opry; induction into 
     the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Country Music 
     Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and his 
     receipt of numerous awards, including Kennedy Center Honors, 
     11 Grammy awards, and the 2001 National Medal of Arts;
       Whereas Johnny Cash embodied the creativity, innovation, 
     and social conscience that define American music;
       Whereas Johnny Cash was a vocal champion of the 
     downtrodden, the working man, and Native Americans; and
       Whereas the Nation has lost one of its most prolific and 
     influential musicians with the death of Johnny Cash on 
     September 12, 2003, in Nashville, Tennessee: Now, therefore, 
     be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That Congress--
       (1) honors the life and accomplishments of Johnny Cash;
       (2) recognizes and honors Johnny Cash for his invaluable 
     contributions to the Nation, Tennessee, and our musical 
     heritage; and
       (3) extends its condolences to the Cash family on the death 
     of a remarkable man.

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, today I am introducing a concurrent 
resolution honoring Johnny Cash.
  Johnny Cash died on Friday in Nashville. The man whose singing voice 
sounded like a big freight train coming, is gone. The concurrent 
resolution I introduce today is on behalf of my colleague, the majority 
leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Senators from Arkansas, 
Mrs. Lincoln and Mr. Pryor, and the distinguished Senator Roberts, who 
probably knows the words to ``I Walk the Line,'' as do most of us all 
over the world.
  Johnny Cash lived a little bit outside of Nashville. I was in his 
home one time and I asked him: Johnny, how many nights do you perform 
on the road?
  He looked at me with some surprise. He said: Oh, about 300 a year.
  Why do you do that, I asked him in amazement?

[[Page S11484]]

  He looked back at me equally amazed. He said: That is what I do.
  All weekend the radio stations have been playing the songs of the man 
who performed 300 times a year for all of us, the ``man in black.'' 
Stores all over Nashville and all over the world were stocking up on 
Johnny Cash memorabilia this weekend.
  So much has been said in newspapers and on TV that one wonders what 
else we Senators might say about Johnny Cash. I mean, what could I say 
better, for example, than what Steven Greenhouse wrote on Johnny on 
page 1 of the New York Times on Saturday:

       Beginning in the mid-1950s, when he made his first record 
     for the Sun label, Mr. Cash forged a lean, hard-bitten 
     country-folk music that at its most powerful seemed to erase 
     the lines between singing, storytelling and grueling life 
     experience. Born in poverty in Arkansas at the height of the 
     Depression, he was country music's foremost poet of the 
     working poor. His stripped-down songs described the lives of 
     coal miners and sharecroppers, convicts and cowboys, railroad 
     workers and laborers.

  ``Foremost poet of the working poor.'' Mr. Greenhouse was not the 
only one who wrote beautifully about the foremost poet of the working 
poor. So did Louie Estrada and David Segal in the Washington Post. So 
did Craig Havighurst and several other writers in the Tennessean in 
Nashville, as well as John Sparks in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
  I have no doubt that in Wichita, Topeka, and important cities all 
over the country and world there were writers who were writing as best 
they could about the music and the sound of Johnny Cash.
  Why do we wait until Johnny Cash dies to write of his poetry? John R. 
Cash is not the only such poet who ever lived in Nashville, TN. Bob 
Dylan, Johnny's friend, once said that Hank Williams was America's 
greatest poet. At last count, there are several thousand songwriters 
living in Nashville struggling to write poetry, some of which will be 
known and remembered everywhere in the world one day.
  Alice Randall, a Nashville songwriter, a writer of songs and books, 
once observed that it is odd that there is so little serious literary 
criticism of the poetry of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and other 
country music songwriters. The outpouring of articles that accompanied 
Johnny's death this weekend suggest that most of the serious criticism 
of the poetry found in country music is done by pop music critics in 
our major newspapers.

  But why is there not a department or a chair or at least a conference 
occasionally dedicated to criticism of the poetry or at least the 
literature of country music? Literary criticism is a fundamental part 
of the departments of English in universities all across America. Some 
of the most famous of these were among the ``Fugitives'' who met during 
the 1920s at Vanderbilt University. Cleanth Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, 
Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Andrew Lytle were some of those 
literary critics who began their careers then.
  If Vanderbilt University, my alma mater, is such a center of literary 
criticism, then why has Vanderbilt University not done more about the 
literature that is country music? Or why does Belmont University in 
Nashville or the University of Tennessee or the University of Memphis 
not do it?
  These Nashville and Memphis songwriters are certainly among the most 
famous poets in the world. But why do we wait for the New York Times 
and Bob Dylan to tell us that Johnny Cash and Hank Williams are also 
among the best poets when Vanderbilt University, among others, lives 
right there among them?
  There are hundreds of good English professors in dozens of 
northeastern universities writing thousands of pages of criticism about 
average poets, while our Tennessee universities are doing almost 
nothing to write about poets who others say are among the best in the 
world. We have had a habit in Tennessee of not being willing to look 
right in front of our own noses to celebrate what is special about us. 
We sometimes worry about producing only average Chopin when right down 
the block lives the best harmonica player in the world.
  I am all for Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. I have played their 
music on the piano with symphonies all across Tennessee, but I have 
also performed with those symphonies some of the most beautiful of the 
unique American music we call country music.
  The death of our friend Johnny Cash, the poet of the working poor, is 
a good time for our Tennessee universities to consider whether they 
might want to celebrate our excellence by encouraging literary 
criticism of some of the best known poets in the world: Our 
songwriters. Our universities might discover what others have 
suggested, that some of our songwriters are also among the best in the 
world.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Madam President, I rise to join Senators Alexander, 
Frist, and Pryor to introduce a resolution in honor of a great 
American, and one of our greatest Arkansans--Johnny Cash, who passed 
away on Friday, September 12, at the age of 71.
  John R. Cash was born in Kingsland, AR on February 26, 1932. When he 
was just 3 years old, his father moved the family to Dyess Colony, a 
New Deal program that set up new farming communities on uncleared land 
near the Mississippi River. The family had 20 acres upon which they 
farmed cotton and other seasonal crops and from the beginning, John was 
taught to work for a living. It was this time spent farming and living 
in Northeast Arkansas, that inspired songs such as ``Look at Them 
Beans'' and ``Five Feet High and Rising.'' At the age of six, he was 
hauling water for a road crew. At twelve he was chopping cotton. When 
he reached high school he was singing on the radio in Blytheville. 
Still, John didn't pick up a guitar until he was stationed in West 
Germany as a soldier in the Army. The instrument was so cheap, he said, 
that ``it didn't even have a brand name.''
  When he returned from Germany, John moved to Memphis, determined to 
make it in the music industry. He sold appliances door-to-door and went 
to broadcasting school on the GI bill, playing music whenever he could. 
Finally, he managed to get an audition before Sam Phillips, the owner 
of the legendary Sun Records studio. The first time Phillips heard Cash 
sing, he turned him down, saying that he sounded ``too country.'' John 
returned with a more rockabilly sound and Phillips began to send his 
group out with another artist on the Sun Records label, Elvis Presley. 
Phillips also began to refer to John as Johnny, a name Cash disliked 
because he thought it made him sound too young. Johnny would go on to 
record some of his most cherished songs for the label, including such 
classics as ``Cry, Cry, Cry'' and ``I Walk the Line''.
  Over the next 5 decades, Johnny Cash recorded over 400 albums, with 
48 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and over 130 hits on the Billboard 
country music charts. In the process, the boy from Dyess Colony managed 
to sell over 50 million records. He is part of a distinguished group of 
musicians from Arkansas including: Conway Twitty, Sonny Boy Williamson, 
Glen Campbell, and Charlie Rich. Even though Johnny Cash and these 
other distinguished artists found fame outside of Arkansas, the 
experience of growing up in Arkansas gave them a unique perspective on 
the feelings of the common man and woman, working hard to just get by, 
a perspective which came through in their music.
  The number of artists he has influenced is immeasurable. He has been 
inducted into the Country & Western Hall of Fame, the Nashville 
Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He 
received 11 Grammy Awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and 
has been honored by both the Kennedy Center for his contribution to 
American Culture and the United Nations, receiving the Humanitarian 
Award. The last two awards illustrate how Johnny Cash became so much 
more than a musician.
  His songs shined a light on aspects of American culture that are 
integral to our Nation's history but too often overlooked. He never 
forgot where he came from and the people he met along the way. He told 
stories about people who worked hard just to survive, people so poor 
they couldn't afford a car so they snuck out the parts to build one 
from the plant where they worked, ``One Piece At A Time''. And he told 
it all with a voice that once was described as ``the perfect voice for 
a man of his spirit. It's unmistakable. It doesn't sound like anybody 
else. And it sounds like the real thing, which is what he is.''
  I ask that all my colleagues in the Senate join me in honoring a true

[[Page S11485]]

American original, a prodigiously talented musician, with a conscience 
that matched those gifts. Our deepest condolences go out to his family 
and friends.

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