Folsom Prison concert<\/a> recordings that gave Cash a renewed understanding of his place and purpose in the world. Through these life-changing events, the themes of sin and salvation are connected to Cash\u2019s experience of success, excess, and, ultimately, redemption. \u201cYou always got the feeling that my dad was trying to get away from pain,\u201d says Rosanne Cash. \u201cHe worked out his deepest problems on the stage, with an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nHere are 10 things we learned from the new film:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Cash\u2019s mother inspired the film\u2019s title.<\/strong>
In an audio interview in preparation for his autobiography, Cash recalls his mother\u2019s proclamation after hearing her teenaged son sing in his newly discovered bass voice for the first time. \u201cMy mother said, \u2018God has His hand on you. Don\u2019t ever forget the gift.\u2019 That\u2019s the first time she called it that. Singing, writing for my voice\u2026 that\u2019s the gift.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n2. He met his first wife, Vivian Liberto, during his early military service in Texas.<\/strong>
Cash enlisted in the Air Force one week before the start of the Korean War, but was eventually sent to Germany. The couple met at St. Mary\u2019s, a San Antonio roller-skating rink, in July 1951. \u201cWe had talked about marriage,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had practically set the wedding date. I knew that when I came home [from Germany, where he would serve much of his time in the Air Force] that I wanted to marry her. I wanted to settle down and raise a family.\u201d Together, the couple would have four daughters: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy, and Tara. Cash also notes that he knew he wanted to sing and to make records. \u201cI wanted to do the best of both,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Cash\u2019s job in the military was due in part to his gift for understanding language.<\/strong>
His job as a radio interceptor used Cash\u2019s skills for listening and hearing the cadence in communications that were going back and forth. \u201cHe understands how words can fit together, and how lines and rhythms can fit together,\u201d says son John Carter Cash. Unable to return home for three years, it was during his military service that Cash saw the 1951 film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison<\/em>, which inspired his 1953 composition \u201cFolsom Prison Blues.\u201d The 1968 live version would reach Number One on the country chart. \u201cI\u2019m speaking from the criminal\u2019s mouth. As it happens there a lot of people who like to hear such lurid tales told, musically,\u201d he says of the song\u2019s most notorious line: \u201cI shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n4. Cash left Sam Phillips\u2019 Sun Records with a promise of creative freedom at Columbia Records.<\/strong>
While his time at the Sun label brought a measure of success, including the pop crossover of \u201cI Walk the Line,\u201d Cash was enticed to sign with Columbia Records after being assured he could make gospel records and other concept albums during his tenure there. He would go on to do both, devoting entire LPs to spiritual material and also songs that would raise awareness of the plight of Native Americans and others. Although the new deal brought major commercial success and freedom, it also caused difficulties with his marriage and exacerbated his abuse of prescription drugs, an issue that would plague him for decades. \u201cMy kids suffered and Vivian suffered,\u201d says Cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n