Johnny Cash.

Johnny was a member of The Highwaymen, with Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. The foursome recorded several albums together in the 1980s and 1990s.

Along with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, Cash was part of the celebrated Million Dollar Quartet, named for their money-making success at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records label.

According to tell-all books by his son John Carter Cash and longtime friend Marshall Grant, Cash was addicted to drugs for most of his adult life. He had relapses after his well-known 1967 withdrawal, including a 1983 ostrich attack requiring painkillers, leading to stays at the Betty Ford Clinic and Cumberland Heights. His wife and son also struggled with addiction.

A species of tarantula, Aphonopelma johnnycashi, was named after Cash. The spider is black and found near Folsom, California.

Johnny Cash was ranked number one of the 40 greatest men in country music.

Throughout his career, Cash recorded over 1500 songs.

Cash’s guitarist Bob Wootton of The Tennessee Three acted as his stunt double for horse-riding scenes because Cash was afraid of horses.

On October 24, 2003, his stepdaughter Rosey Nix Adams, a country music singer, died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning at age 45.

Cash recorded entire albums live at California’s Folsom and San Quentin prisons in front of highly receptive inmate audiences.

In an interview with Larry King, Cash stated that his favorite country singer was Dwight Yoakam.

During the 1970s, Cash associated with evangelists and turned his shows into gospel performances encouraging faith. He later expressed distaste for his earlier overzealousness, saying he learned to respect others’ beliefs while maintaining his faith.

The video for Hurt from The Man Comes Around was voted the greatest music video ever by a panel assembled by the UK newspaper The Guardian.

One of Cash’s biggest fans was Jackass star Johnny Knoxville, and the two became friends before Cash’s death.

When his career was at a low in the 1980s, Cash deliberately recorded the intentionally awful song Chicken in Black about his brain being transplanted into a chicken to provoke his record label Columbia into dropping him. It ironically became a commercial success, and soon after Columbia and Cash parted ways.

His album Ring of Fire 1964 was the first country album to reach number one on the US pop charts.

Contrary to popular belief, Cash never served more than one night in prison. He was held overnight after being caught smuggling over 1,163 amphetamine tablets from Mexico. He wrote Folsom Prison Blues after seeing the documentary Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.

Cash’s songwriting process changed over time. He wrote Big River quickly during a boat ride across the Hudson River in the 1950s, but spent weeks crafting The Man Comes Around later in his life.

In his song Man in Black, Cash explained that he wore black clothing to honor and remind others of the world’s poor and oppressed.

Cash was addicted to speed often with alcohol or morphine through much of his 20s until a successful intervention in 1967 led by June Carter Cash and friends. He believed he had an addictive personality that may have been genetic.

The son of poor cotton farmers, Cash’s experiences during the Depression shaped him and inspired many of his songs.

Cash disliked being defined solely as a country artist, feeling his music blended rock n roll, folk, bluegrass, blues, and gospel, often standing outside the Nashville mainstream.

In the years before his death, Cash recorded covers of contemporary artists including U2’s One, Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus, and a song written for him by Glenn Danzig titled Thirteen.

After the 1950s, when he wrote most of his own songs, Cash began performing many covers, typically writing about a third of the songs on his albums.

The scar to the right of Cash’s mouth resulted from a botched cyst removal while he was in the Air Force in Germany.

At a 1972 White House performance requested by President Richard Nixon, Cash refused to play Merle Haggard’s Okie from Muskogee and Guy Drake’s Welfare Cadillac, reportedly because he found both songs morally reprehensible. Instead, he played his own politically charged songs including The Ballad of Ira H. Hayes and Man in Black.

Cash was the father of Rosanne, Tara, Cindy, and Kathy Cash with Vivian Liberto, and John Carter Cash with June Carter Cash.

Cash’s weight fluctuated dramatically: about 200 pounds as a young man, dropping to an unhealthy 140 during peak drug addiction, then increasing to about 250 pounds in his 50s.

Cash had English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. His surname traces back to Scotland.

After his friend Carl Perkins suffered from a car accident and alcoholism, Cash supported him by taking him on tour as a guitarist and performing songs Perkins wrote.

Cash was the godfather of John Keach, son of Jane Seymour and James Keach.

Cash’s father served in the US Army unit under General John J. Pershing that hunted Mexican bandit Pancho Villa in the early 1900s.

After winning a Grammy for best country record for Unchained, Cash and his label posted a thank-you ad in Billboard featuring a photo of Cash giving the middle finger from his San Quentin performance, angered by Nashville’s neglect of older country artists.

Kris Kristofferson admitted that his well-known song Pilgrim was written about Cash.

In January 2006, Cash’s long-time lakeside home in Hendersonville, Tennessee was bought by a corporation owned by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees.

Rolling Stone voted Cash the 31st Greatest Rock n Roll Artist of all time.

The US Air Force would not accept J.R. as a given name when Cash enlisted, so he became John R. Cash. He signed for Sun Records in 1955 as Johnny Cash.

In his autobiography, Cash admitted he and his early band The Tennessee Three were self-taught and limited in musical ability, resulting in many similar-sounding songs.

Cash had a fear of horses and refused to ride them in film scenes.