Tag: fear of flying

Better known as the “Man in Black”, John R. Cash was born February 26, 1932 and passed on September 12, 2003.  His music has stood the test of time, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

As stupid as it sounds, I learned about the Man In Black through the movie “Swingers” when we learn that a character in the movie is named after a the Johnny Cash Song “A Boy Named Sue.”  If you haven’t seen the movie (which is a personal favorite of mine) you can catch the scene at around the 35 second mark in the video at the link here.

Such a classic scene. Johnny Cash’s music is classic as well.  “I Walk the Line“, “Folsom Prison Blues“, “Ring of Fire“, “Man in Black“… all Johnny Cash classics.  If you’re not familiar with those songs, maybe you should google them. I’m not going to embed them here.  Rather, I’d like to list 9 interesting facts that I found at this link.  Stuff I didn’t know, that you may find interesting or amusing:

1. Johnny Cash started smoking when he was 12 years old.

2. His first gig with the Tennessee Two was playing for a group of elderly ladies in a church basement.

3. During his act in the 1950s, Cash flaunted a killer Elvis impersonation.

4. Roy Orbison was Cash’s next-door neighbor in Tennessee for over 20 years.

5. An ostrich attack left Cash with five broken ribs and internal bleeding.

6. Muhammad Ali wrote a poem for Cash called “Truth” which Cash kept locked in a vault.

7. According to his autobiography Cash, if he were stuck on a desert island, Cash would bring Bob Dylan’s The Freeweelin’ Bob Dylan, Merle Travis’ Down Home, Jimmie Davis’s Greatest Gospel Hits, Emmylou Harris’ Roses in the Snow, Rosanne Cash’s The Wheel, a gospel album by Rosetta Tharpe, “something by Beethoven,” and You Are There by Edward R. Murrow.

8. Cash suffered from aviataphobia (fear of flying) and ophidophobia (fear of snakes).

9. In the Air Force, Cash wrote short stories under the pen name Johnny Dollar.