Johnny Cash has always been a hard figure to characterize. A devout Christian, a loving husband and, at times, a deeply troubled soul. Mr. Foley’s thoughtful analysis of the political and socioeconomic contradictions that comprised Cash’s world view.

To say that we live in a politically divisive era is an understatement. It is even culturally difficult to be a moderate, because you often both sides of the aisle. We are therefore coerced to choose a side, stand our ground and criticize everyone and everything on the other side. Yet to say that this era is the only divisive era in American or world history would be extremely naïve. For there have been plenty of generations before us who were just as bad, if not worse. The question is, therefore, not are we politically divided, but how do we handle such a cultural moment. For the answer, we can look to a figure in America’s past that may surprise you: Johnny Cash. This is what author Michael Stewart Foley discusses in his book Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash (Basic Books, 2021).

Johnny Cash was a larger than life musician who’s influence and legacy has endured long after his death. In life, Cash was a known for doing what he thought was right and could be controversial at times. Yet his is difficult to fit into a political box. As he was neither conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. He found himself somewhere in the middle. For example, he was known for his opposition to the war in Vietnam, but at the same time he was highly supportive of American troops. His deep personal faith manifested into standing up for the marginalized like prisoners and indigenous peoples. He is even famous for going against the network big whigs on his prime time show when he sang the lyrics “wishing Lord that I was stoned” from Kris Kristipherson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” because he thought it was only right to sing it the way it was originally written. Nobody could put Johnny Cash in a box.

Citizen Cash is an excellent study of the political life of the late Johnny Cash. He stands as a model for us in our politically divisive times. Yet the take away is not “be more like Johnny Cash.” The take away is to know our own convictions and be true to them. It is only then that we are being like Johnny Cash. I would highly recommend.

I enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot. The author does a very good job with presenting the political contradictions of Johnny Cash and his Music. Johnny Cash used his music and his TV show to present issues that were important to him. I liked that the author presents both sides of Cash's contradictions but ends the book with the important lesson. It is well researched and well written. Enjoy

Fascinating insight in the man and times he lived…

I wanted to read this book for many reasons, the main one being the tie between Johnny Cash and my mother. She LOVED him. His music. His acting. It was someone, something, that everyone in the family enjoyed and we shared. Now, anytime his song is played we all share a smile, the remembrances very happy ones. I knew bits of the ‘legend’ of the man but didn’t understand, or appreciate, the depths of his beliefs and the road that led him to stardom. I feel now, with this book, I do…

Tracing his life, and his interests, from when he was very young, this felt part biographical with a huge slant to the issues that became his passions. His memories of growing up poor yet rich with family and faith. His participation in the army and how it fed his understanding and stance on politics, on war and peace. His struggles with drugs and alcohol. The ups and downs of fame and how, through everything, his faith in God and his love of music fed him his whole life.

This was a great read with a writing style that made even all the information it held, easy to read and absorb. This was a temporary copy and I will be adding it to my permanent shelf – it will be worth a (few) rereads for sure.

“As Cash’s children reminded the world when news cameras captured the image of a white supremacist wearing a Johnny Cash T-shirt in 2017 at the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, their father repeatedly impressed upon them ‘you can choose love or hate.’ Cash told his children that he chose love.”

So ends this astonishing biography.

As someone with a very lackadaisical knowledge of 20th century music and pop culture, I was snagged mostly by the promise of the subtitle, of the larger contextual picture Foley wanted to paint around Cash. And I was not let down at all.

Not just a biography - maybe not really a biography at all - this book is a nuanced, complicated narrative presented with both a warmth of generosity and an unhesitating critical eye towards its subject matter.

For fans of biography, music history, politics, and thoughtful discourse.

This book was amazing and everything of the sort. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

As the title of the book already suggests "Citizen Cash" looks at the political side of Johnny Cash. There are various speculations on which "side" of the American political spectrum Cash had been. Some say, he was a democrat while others claim he was a Republican. What could possibly be "the truth"?

Foley looks at this from a different perspective: Instead of treating it as a yes or no question, he suggests that Cash was neither. Foley argues that Cash participated in politics of empathy. Through the book, Foley explains and provides evidence of this hypothesis.

As such "Citizen Cash" always shines a light on Cash's personal experiences. Foley tells us about Cash's poverty ridden childhood, seeing chaingangs and POWs work on fields in brutal conditions as well as his military service and drug addiction.

However, this book is not a biography. Instead, these moments help to explain where Cash's empathy came from, as well as from which experiences he drew from to write songs that cut so deep. Alongside Cash's ability to empathise with the misfit, outlaw, and other minority groups because has lived through similar struggles.

Foley covered the topics poverty and hard work, patriotism, racism, prison life, religion, and war (all related to Johnny Cash's works, of course) within 7 chapters.

All of these are written with a formality of a scientific paper, providing insight, sources, and explanations. Yet, the language in which it is written does not require any academic knowledge. Instead, it feels like a YouTube series made by a well-educated fan - just in book form.

A lot of background information about American history is needed to truly understand Cash, but Foley does not skim over those subjects. Instead, he provides all these infos, assuming that the reading has never heard of it before. This was extremely helpful, especially considering that American history is not the center of every country's history lessons.

As such, "Citizen Cash" acquired some length. There is not one chapter to explain all, instead if the same topic is touched upon again, there is a quick reminder. This in turn means that the book is not a quick read at all. It is a slow progress and the reader really needs to take the time to sit down and soak the information in.

Yet, I believe that "Citizen Cash" is worth the time you need to invest. It did not only provide me with new and valuable insight about Johnny Cash but it also offered sources and inspiration to look at other things related to the man. This is a great book for fans, and music nuts.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Perseus Books, Basic Books, for an advanced copy of this musical and political biography.

Johnny Cash was a man of if not constant, at least many sorrows. Cash wore black for the poor and broke down. Cash loved Jesus, but his most famous songs featured murderers and killers. Loved by the right, he sang songs with Bob Dylan, was a Highwayman, an addict and an adulterer. In a time of polarization where country music is a dividing line between left and right, only two things can be agreed on by both sides. Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton for that matter, are amazing,once in a lifetime people. Historian Michael Stewart Foley writes about Johnny Cash and his politics, where he stood and what he tried to do for others in his book Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash.

Not another biography, this book focuses more on the politics of the singer who could get crowds from all sides of the political spectrum sing songs of brave Native Americans, flooded out farmers and prisoners waiting to hang. Foley discusses Cash's upbringing, poor, with friends of both races, and his family's early involvement with organized labor that helped his town and neighbors survive during the Depression. How his time in the Army taught him much of what the military was like and helped him make decisions when questions about Vietnam were asked. And later when given his variety show on television he talked and tried to show the lives of those less fortunate in as many homes as he could, on a medium that he knew the people he talked and sang about could not afford.

The research is quite interesting with many new facts about Cash and his life coming forward. The writing style can be a little tough to get into, where is the talk about music and his musical influences might be a common question. However this is not that kind of a book. This is about the man and his message, and where the message was molded. I don't think there are many performers you could write a biography like this about.

As a fan of music I have read quite a few books on Cash, at least two I believe had his name on the cover as writer, but I have much more of an appreciation and understanding for the Man in Black now from Mr. Foley's work. An excellent biography about a man who tried his best to be what he thought was a good man. A very topical book as political parties seem to want to fight over who belongs on their team and who is not. Mr. Cash, well he walked the line.

Detailed Examination Of Forgotten Elements Of A Legend. I grew up listening to Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and others of that generation via Country Gold Saturday Night on the radio in the late 80s and early 90s. My family would pile in the pickup truck, parents in the cab, myself and my two younger brothers in the back, and we would ride the backroads in the boonies of northwest Georgia between Atlanta and Chatanooga, listening to the radio and feeling the wind buffet our bodies. Honestly some of my most fond memories of the carefree era of my childhood, and Johnny Cash played a role there - a role he never knew about. And while I've known of him since then as a country music legend, I had never considered his politics or messages.

This book changes that.

This book, with its chapters focusing on specific elements of Cash's political beliefs and how they developed, is less biography and more analysis of how the given message came to be espoused by this particular man and why. It shows that at his heart, Johnny Cash was a man who empathized with the low and down trodden. How his own childhood on a Depression era sharecropper farm came to shape much of how he saw the world, and how even his service in the US Air Force in Germany during the Korean War era would come to shape his views of the Vietnam War a decade later. The text does not shy away from Cash's well known (and well documented) struggles with drugs and alcohol, even showing where Cash himself was hypocritical on the issues at times - ordering his wife never to touch alcohol, even in some letters where it is quite clear he himself is drunk while writing them. At the same time, it doesn't spend much time on these particular facets or even his wives, the controversy surrounding how he eventually got together with June Carter, his various kids, or any other aspect an actual biography would. Instead, this text uses biography more as background and scaffolding to show how Cash came to the political positions he did and how he came to espouse them.

Truly an interesting take on a genuine legend, and very much recommended.

CITIZEN CASH is a biography and analysis primarily of one aspect of the legendary artist’s life and career, which is his political views, and how they affected his decisions made that made him unique in his appeal to both political parties as he was able to avoid being tied to either side by basing his stance on individual issues based on the effect on humanity, which often related to siding with the downtrodden and disenfranchised including victims of racism and bigotry.

Excellent in-depth research helps to track the political leanings of Cash throughout his career, and his humble upbringings that were always present in his thinking of those ignored and left behind.

Understandably, in his long lifetime and career there were occasional times where there are inconsistencies (and inaccuracies based on misunderstanding) in his stances, those instances are rare and his lifetime displayed credibility (and deserving respectability) for his intentions towards his fellow man, whom most notably were the Native Americans that he believed he was related to by blood (found to be in error according to the author’s research), and to a lesser degree African Americans.

Rating this book is made a bit difficult in that while it is well written and researched, it was difficult for me to focus on the artist’s life specifically in regards to his political stand on issues for the length of an entire book, yet I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the political thoughts and actions of Johnny Cash throughout his entire career and lifetime.

4 stars.

Unfortunately lost access to this book early for some reason. But the bit I did read was very interesting and I probably buy it just to complete the read

This book is pretty wonderful, y’all. It’s clearly well-researched and full of interesting tidbits. Country music has, sadly, come to represent a very simple and often closed-minded demographic. The progressive views, intelligent political commentary, and groundbreaking subject matter that it was founded on tend to be overlooked these days. Cash’s beliefs didn’t stick to a party line, the true mark of a thinking man; and he was never tempted to hold them back, a proper rebel. Whether you’re a fan of his music or just captivated by his persona, I believe this book will speak to you. It’s broken down in a very readable way and offers a lot of insight into the complexities of the Man in Black.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Basic Books for the advance reader copy of this book, in exchange for my honest review.

Due for release, December 7, 2021, Foley’s thoroughly-researched book Citizen Cash offers a close look at Cash’s songs and how they set out political ideas. For those of us only familiar with only a few legendary Cash songs (generally Ring of Fire, Walk the Line, Man in Black), it is a new adventure, but he’s got whole truckloads of songs that many are not familiar with. Split into themed chapters, we find a host of songs about the plight of the poor, echoing Cash’s poverty stricken Arkansas childhood. Then, there’s a chapter connecting Cash to the civil rights movement. There’s a chapter pointing out songs about Native Americans and their difficulties. Then, we get a chapter about Cash and his complicated response to the Vietnam War, including his support for Nixon’s peace plan, his support for our troops, and his concern over the plight of the soldiers who never made it home from a seemingly never-ending war. Finally, the fifth chapter of the book explores Cash’s Christianity as it was expressed in his music and television show. This is not a biography although it touches on biographical details. Rather, it’s an exploration of Cash’s ideas and interests expressed in his music and on his long-running show.