June Carter and Johnny Cash landing in Australia in 1973
This weekend marks the birthday of one of the most iconic figures in music history. Incredibly, Johnny Cash was just one of the legendary artists to emerge from the tiny Sun records in Memphis in the 1950s that included Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and of course, Elvis Presley. Cash’s relationship with John remains as iconic as his music but she knew Elvis long before they met and their only child, John Carter Cash, recalled how his mother would have a “mischievous flash” when she talked about her early days with King. June even told her son that she sometimes wondered what would have happened if she had married Elvis. After all, they’d built their music careers side by side on tour buses and local clubs and he’d often sleep over at her house between dates.
Elvis and June contemporaries in the Memphis and southern US music scenes of the mid-1950s and June later recalled how the young aspiring star would often talk about Johnny and sing his songs, innocently promising to introduce her to the man who would one day become her husband — though no one knew it at the time. . Nor could anyone imagine the twelve years of heartache it would take before they finally got married.
June Carter has been performing since a young age on the country music circuit with her sisters and mother, Maybelle. Elvis also began his career touring theaters, fairs and radio stations in the southern states with bandmates Scotty Moore and Bill Black.
Elvis on stage in Shreveport in 1954 with Scotty and Bill (Image: GETTY)
June Carter (left) with her family (Image: GETTY)
June later described how it was Elvis who introduced her to Johnny’s music on their first tour together.
She wrote: “He got down on one knee and grabbed the guitar trying to tune it somewhere near the right note to make a right chord tinkle. (He’d sing) ‘Everyone knows where you go when the sun goes down, Ah-ummm, Ah-ummm’ and he would whack the guitar.” once again.
‘What are you trying to do?’ I asked. ‘I’m trying to tune that guitar, honey, and I’m trying to sing like Johnny Cash.'”
Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash on Sun Records December 1956 (Image: GETTY)
June described Elvis singing one of Johnny’s first songs, Cry Cry Cry, as he tuned his guitar: “Who is Johnny Cash?” I asked Elvis Presley, “What is this for?”
Elvis said, “That’s what drives girls crazy. I don’t know this Johnny Cash,” and Elvis said, “Oh, you’ll know Cash. The whole world will know Johnny Cash. He’s a friend of mine.”
“So the whole tour, my first with Elvis, we went to little coffee shops all over the South, and Elvis played Johnny Cash at the jukebox while I fought girls trying to cross Scotty and Bill and I into Elvis.”
Elvis in 1955 (Image: GETTY)
As Elvis and Johnny’s fame grew, they used to enjoy making fun of each other. In a 1959 show, Cash told the audience: “In almost all of our shows we usually do impersonations and we have a request here tonight to do a rock ‘n’ roll singer impersonation. This is an impersonation of a rock ‘n’ roll singer who impersonates Elvis, that’s what it really is.” “.
Cash then styled his hair in a classic Elvis quiff, wildly contorting his body like the teen idol’s iconic transformations before starting to sing, “Since my baby left me, will I find anywhere to live” from the hit song Heartbreak Hotel. Watch it below.
John and Johnny finally met backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, in June 1956. He was about to go on stage to debut what would become one of his most popular songs, I Walk The Line.
June said: “I found myself backstage trying to tune my guitar humming ‘Uh um um um um’, and suddenly there it was! The sound was the same. Johnny Cash took me by the hand and said, ‘I’ve always wanted to meet you. ‘”
“I had the strangest feeling. I was afraid to look him in the eye. It was one of the things I did better. I never stuttered and I still find myself not being able to say much of anything. I think I just screwed up all of a sudden – “I feel like I already know you. Elvis plays you jukebox all the time and can’t tune his guitar without humming Cry, Cry, Cry. Now he made me do it.”
Elvis Presley’s life in pictures (Image: GETTY)
Both described the instant strong attraction, but they were also married – June to singer Carl Smith and then Edwin Lee Nix, and Johnny to teenage sweetheart Vivian Liberto.
But at the time, there was more speculation about June’s relationship with Elvis. He was, of course, infamously attached to the women he worked with throughout his career, as well as admirers in every city he visited.
In 2008, June’s son, June Carter Cash, released the autobiography Anchored In Love: An Intimate Portrait of June Carter Cash with his own insights into the stars’ relationship.
“All my life,” he wrote, “I’d see my mother have a mischievous twinkle in her eye whenever I mentioned Elvis Presley. Her eyes would sparkle merrily, and she’d say, ‘You know, son, your dad was always jealous of Elvis. ‘” “
Johnny Cash and John Carter (Image: GETTY)
She even told me once that she sometimes wondered what would have happened if she had fallen in love with Elvis.
Mom and Elvis occasionally toured together, along with other artists, sometimes including Mother Maybelle and one or more of June’s sisters. The Carter family were friends with Elvis, and there are stories about Mother Maybelle sewing buttons on Elvis’ shirts when she showed up. during his wild transformations on stage.
“Although my mom always maintained that she wasn’t having an affair with Elvis, Carl (her first husband) thought differently and probably with good reason. After Carl left their home in Madison, my mom would sometimes let Elvis stay home to “comfort” After a tour.”
Johnny Cash and June Carter, 1991 (Image: GETTY)
June, of course, was always destined for Johnny, but their path to happiness was long and difficult. She divorced Carl in 1956 but soon married Edwin Nix the following year. She had a daughter with each husband while Johnny had four with Vivian, while battling drugs and alcohol.
John and Johnny’s notorious chemistry has been transformed into a highly successful professional partnership since the mid-1960s. His biggest hit, Ring of Fire, was written in 1963.
Both divorced from their wives in 1966 and finally married in 1968, remaining together on and off stage until their deaths. June passed away on May 15, 2003 after heart surgery. Johnny died four months later.
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