Easily the most iconic country music romance of all time, Johnny Cash and June Carter had a love story that transcended time, addiction, and the highs and lows of fame. From performing hit crossover songs ("Jackson"), to inspiring an Oscar-caliber movie about their relationship, Johnny Cash and June Carter remain to this day one of the most famous and celebrated relationships of the 20th century. But it wasn't always smooth sailing—both Cash and Carter overcame personal hurtles and industry obstacles that could have prevented their being together. Read on for a look at their romance.
June Carter
Born in Maces Springs, Virginia on June 23rd, 1929, Valerie June Carter was a musician born and bred. The daughter of Ezra and Maybelle Carter, her mother played with the successful country and folk group the Carter Family with June's uncle A.P. Carter and his wife Sara since 1927—by the time she was ten, little June was also contributing her voice to the band.
In the 1940s June, along with her mother and her two sisters, Helen and Anita, formed the act Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters (intermittently billed simply as the Carter Sisters) traveling the country, playing radio shows, and eventually joining the cast of the national country music showcase the Grand Ole Opry.
It was through the Opry that June met honky-tonk singer Carl Smith, whom she married in 1952. Together the two would have one daughter, Carlene, who would herself become a successful country musician.
Johnny Cash
J.R. Cash was born in Cleveland County,Arkansas on February 26, 1932. Cash would later take on the name John at the insistence of an Air Force recruiter who would not accept only initials (J.R. was supposedly a compromise between his parents who could not agree on a name), though Sun Records founder Sam Phillips is frequently credited with adapting it to "Johnny."
His young life was marred by tragedy when his older brother, Jack, whom Cash admired died in an industrial accident while sawing wood when Johnny was 12. According to Cash's sister, he helped dig his brother's grave on the morning of the funeral and stood through the service covered in dirt. Cash was said to have never been entirely the same after the incident.
In 1950, Cash graduated from high school, taking on a number of short term jobs before ultimately joining the Air Force. Shortly before he shipped out to Germany in 1951, he met Vivian Liberto at a roller rink in San Antonio, setting off a whirlwind romance. Throughout Cash's service, the two exchanged an enormous volume of letters, and when he returned to the States in 1954, they married. Together they would go on to have four daughters; Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara.
The newlyweds moved to Memphis where Cash briefly sold appliances before his brother Roy introduced him to guitarists Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, who would go on to become Cash's backup players as the Tennessee Two.
After introducing himself to Phillips in 1955, Cash played one of his original songs, “Hey Porter,” which interested the producer enough that he asked to write a sad song to pair with it. The aspiring songwriter reportedly went home and wrote the song “Cry, Cry, Cry,” in 15 minutes. It was recorded in May and issued with “Porter"; the start of Cash's road to fame.
Cash and Carter met at the Grand Ole Opry
In July 1956, Johnny Cash made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage. He had recently released the song "I Walk the Line" which had become a then-rare crossover hit with fans of both pop and country. Singer Carl Smith welcomed Cash to the show, but it was a backstage introduction that would make the biggest impact on Cash—one to Smith's wife, June Carter.
“I’ve always wanted to meet you,” Cash, who had grown up listening to June perform with her family, reportedly told her.
Carter, fresh off a tour with Cash's friend and contemporary Elvis Presley, supposedly responded, “I feel like I know you already."
“I can’t remember anything else we talked about, except his eyes,” June Carter wrote in the notes on Cash’s 2000 box set, Love, God, Murder. “Those black eyes that shone like agates… He had a command of his performance that I had never before. Just a guitar and a bass and a gentle kind of presence that made not only me, but whole audiences become his followers.”
They started touring together
By the early 1960s, Carter was touring with Cash regularly as a backup singer, duet partner, and entertainer. She had by that time divorced from Carl Smith, but was now married to a police officer named Edwin Nix, with whom she would have another daughter, Rosie, who also became a country musician.
Both Carter and Cash would remain married to their spouses until 1966 and 1967 respectively (Vivian filed for divorce in 1966 but it was not granted until later the following year.)
Despite the fact that their romance become something of a country music fairytale, the couple was relatively circumspect throughout the years regarding the beginning of their relationship.
“I never talked much about how I fell in love with John,” Carter Cash told Rolling Stone in 2000. “It was not a convenient time for me to fall in love with him, and it wasn’t a convenient time for him to fall in love with me. ... I was frightened of his way of life. I thought, I can’t fall in love with this man, but it’s just like a ring of fire.”
It was this thought that inspired her to co-write Cash's hit song “Ring of Fire” with Merle Kilgore. (The song was originally released as a single by Carter's sister Anita before being recorded by Cash in 1963.)
Cash credited Carter with helping him get sober
Thought the 1960s Cash famously dealt with a serious addiction to drugs and alcohol. His marriage was crumbling under his frequent absences, infidelities, and addictions and he was known to cancel or simply miss concert appearances.
He was, in the course of his life, arrested seven times, though despite his outlaw reputation he never spent any significant time in jail. Most of his offenses were related to drugs or alcohol, including a 1965 arrest after Cash crossed the border from Texas to Juarez, Mexico and was caught returning with over 1,000 amphetamine tablets in his possession. That same year he also accidentally set fire to a portion of the Los Padres National Forest in California near when his camper caught fire, burning hundreds of acres of forest and killing many of the region's endangered California condors. He was sued by the federal government for the crime, becoming the first person ever sued by the U.S. government for starting a forest fire.
While Carter was herself, allegedly dealing with addiction issues (according to her son John Carter Cash's 2007 book Anchored in Love: The Life and Legacy of June Carter Cash) Cash did credit her with helping him toward recovery. The popular story he told had him wandering into a cave on the Tennessee River prepared to die only to find God and return from the cave to find June and his mother waiting with open arms. Cash said that was the day that he swore off pills, although Robert Hilburn's 2013 biography of the singer points out that that the cave in question would have been flooded at the time.
They married in 1968
Though they remained circumspect throughout their lives about precisely when and how they got together, Cash proposed to Carter onstage at the London Ice House in front of a crowd of 7,000 in February 1968. They married just a few weeks later.
Together the two continued in fruitful musical careers for many years, sharing grammy awards in 1967 and 1970 in addition to their individual awards (2 solo Grammys for Carter and 11 for Cash, including a lifetime achievement award.) They also helmed The Johnny Cash Show, a TV variety show featuring musical guests like Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson between 1969-1971.
Their only child together, John Carter Cash, was born in 1970. He would go on to become a musician and music producer in his own right.
The couple remained together for the rest of their lives, passing away a scant four months apart: Carter in May 2003, Cash that September. Throughout that time they remained an iconic music love story.
“You still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better. You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence,” Cash wrote to his wife on her 65th birthday. “We got old and got used to each other. We think alike. We read each others minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes we take each other for granted. But once in a while, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met.”
Lauren Hubbard is a freelance writer and Town & Country contributor who covers beauty, shopping, entertainment, travel, home decor, wine, and cocktails.
