Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash: two sides of a love triangle? These two music icons
have more in common than you might think. This is the truth about their friendship.
706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee marks the spot of what could be called the birthplace of
rock 'n' roll — or, at least, the place that brought rock 'n' roll into the mainstream.
According to The National, it all began in 1954, when a 19-year-old Elvis Presley
performed Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right" for Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records.
That same year, Johnny Cash performed gospel songs in an audition for Phillips,
who told him to, quote, "go home and sin, then come back with a song I can sell."
By the end of 1954, Presley and Cash were both signed to the label.
Sun Records president John Singleton told The National.
"I can't say for sure what pop music would sound like today without a Sun Records in the '50s,
but there may not have been a Beatles or Rolling Stones. I believe it would
be hard to find a successful rock artist who was not a fan of Sun."
The first time Cash met Presely, Elvis was performing from the flatbed of a truck to sing for
a couple hundred people at a drugstore opening. At that time, he had only released one single,
and was left with no choice but to play the same two songs — his only songs — on a loop.
It wasn't much of a show, so Presley invited Cash and his wife Vivian to see his next concert.
It didn't go much better. Cash wrote in "Cash: The Autobiography,"
"The date was a blunder, because the place was an adult club where teenagers weren't welcome,
and so Vivian and I were two of only a dozen or so patrons,
fifteen at the most. All the same, I thought Elvis was great ... He didn't
say much. He didn't have to, of course; his charisma alone kept everyone's attention."
Still, Cash came away impressed, especially with Presely's underrated rhythm guitar playing.
Cash could see that Elvis was destined for greater things.
Throughout his life, Johnny Cash felt a certain loyalty to the Elvis Presley he knew in the 1950s.
He wrote in "Cash: The Autobiography" that he much preferred Presley's music
when they first met over his popular later work, which Cash thought was overproduced.
"My Elvis was the Elvis of the '50s. He was a kid when I worked with him. He was 19 years old,
and he loved cheeseburgers, girls, and his mother, not necessarily in that order (it was more like
his mother, then girls, then cheeseburgers) [...] Personally, I liked cheeseburgers and
I had nothing against his mother, but the girls were the thing. He had so many girls after him
that whenever he was working with us, there were always plenty left over. We had a lot of fun."
Presley, his rock 'n' roll songs,
and his hip-shaking famously drew hordes of enthusiastic girls. But Cash
emphasized in his biography that Presley's stardom was built on more than sex appeal.
"Elvis was so good. Every show I did with him,
I never missed the chance to stand in the wings and watch. We all did. He was that charismatic."
In the mid-1950s, June Carter of the country trio The Carter Sisters went on tour with Elvis.
Presley took to playing Cash's music on the road. In her 1987 autobiography, "From the Heart,"
Carter recalled a time when Presley was trying to tune his guitar and sing Cash's early hit "Cry,
Cry, Cry." Carter recalled saying, quote, "I don't know this Johnny Cash." To which Presely replied,
"Oh you'll know Cash. The whole world will know Johnny Cash. He's a friend of mine."
In June 1956,
Carter and Cash finally met at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Carter wrote,
"Johnny Cash took me by the hand and said, 'I've always wanted to meet you.' The strangest feeling
came over me. I was afraid to look him in the eyes. It was one of the things I did best.
I never stammered and still found myself not able to say much of anything. I think I finally
blurted out — 'I feel like I know you already. Elvis plays you on the jukebox all the time
and he can't tune his guitar without humming "Cry, Cry, Cry." Now he's got me doing it.'"
In 2008, John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny Cash and June Carter,
released the biography "Anchored in Love: An Intimate Portrait of June Carter Cash." In the
book, John addressed speculation that June may have had an affair with Elvis Presley. He wrote,
"Throughout my life, I would see Mom get a mischievous twinkle in her eye whenever she
mentioned Elvis Presley. Her eyes would flash merrily, and she would say, 'You know, son,
your father was always jealous of Elvis' [...] She even told me once
that she sometimes wondered what would have happened if she had fallen in love with Elvis."
John Carter Cash speculated that there may have been more to his
mother's speculation than idle fancy. He wrote,
"Though Mom always maintained that she never had an affair with Elvis, Carl [Smith,
her first husband] believed differently and perhaps for good reason. After Carl moved out
of their Madison home, Mom would sometimes let Elvis stay at the house to 'rest' after a tour."
On December 4, 1956, singer-songwriter Carl Perkins headed to Memphis' Sun
Studio for a recording session. A pre-fame Jerry Lee Lewis was there on keys and,
by pure coincidence, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash both stopped by the studio.
The foursome then played a 23-song blend of gospel, bluegrass, and contemporary hits,
including Presley's own "Love Me Tender" and "Don't Be Cruel."
Recognizing the unusual, and now historic, nature of this meeting of musical minds, Sun
Records founder Sam Phillips alerted the Memphis Press-Scimitar. The paper ran the story the
following day, complete with a photo of the four musicians, captioned "The Million Dollar Quartet."
Cash described the session in "Cash: The Autobiography," writing
"I was the first to arrive and the last to leave, contrary to what has been written.
I was just there to watch Carl record, which he did until mid-afternoon, when Elvis came in
with his girlfriend. At that point the session stopped and we all started laughing and cutting
up together. Then Elvis sat down at the piano, and we started singing gospel songs we all knew."
Though some have said that Cash can't be heard in the recordings, he wrote that this isn't true.
"[...] contrary to what some people have written, my voice is on the tape.
It's not obvious, because I was farthest away from the mike and I was singing a lot higher
than I usually did in order to stay in key with Elvis, but I guarantee you, I'm there."
In 1959, Johnny Cash opened for Elvis Presley on a live tour. He began with a slapstick,
hip-swiveling Elvis impression and a rendition of the King's 1958 hit "Heartbreak Hotel." Then,
when Presley would enter the stage, he would take his turn impersonating the Man in Black.
Presley's Cash impression reportedly traveled offstage and on the road,
according to Chuck Crisafulli and George Klein's 2010 book "Elvis: My Best Man:
Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley."
During Presley's 1957 tour, he was riding a train when a teenage girl approached him, greeted him
with an excited "Johnny Cash!", and asked him to sing one of his – Cash's — songs. Klein wrote,
"Elvis would never sing one of his own songs in that type of situation,
but for this little Johnny Cash fan he dropped his voice to its lowest notes
and started singing a few lines of 'Hey Porter,' a song Cash had cut
at Sun that seemed especially appropriate for a midnight train ride. The girl was thrilled,
and even ended up with an autograph from Elvis, which read: 'Best Wishes, Johnny Cash.'"
The level of stardom that Elvis Presley experienced inevitably came with its
share of scrutiny. And although Presley was eager to shake his hips on the world's stage,
he had a hard time with criticism of any kind,
and particularly the rumors about him using drugs, as Johnny Cash noted in "Cash: The Autobiography."
"[Presley] was very sensitive, easily hurt by the stories people told about him being
on dope and so on. I myself couldn't understand why people wanted to say that back in the '50s,
because in those days he was the last person on earth who needed dope. He had such a high energy
level that it seemed he never stopped – though maybe that's why they said he was on dope."
Cash went on to say that as far as he knew, there was no basis to the rumors.
"I never saw any evidence of it. I never saw him use any kind of drug, or even alcohol;
he was always clear-headed around me, and very pleasant."
Cash himself didn't see Presley as a "bad boy" or a contentious figure at all. He wrote,
"Elvis was such a nice guy, and so talented and charismatic — he had it all — that some people
just couldn't handle it and reacted with jealousy. It's only human, I suppose, but it's sad."
Beyond the 1950s, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash went their separate ways. In 2020,
Cash's son, John Carter Cash, told Express,
"Elvis went on to make his films and some more music
later on and they never worked again together after the 1950s."
Cash explained why in "Cash: The Autobiography." He wrote,
"He and I liked each other, but we weren't that tight — I was older than he was,
for one thing, and married, for another — and we weren't close at
all in his later years. I took the hint when he closed his world around him;
I didn't try to invade his privacy. I'm so glad I didn't, either, because so many of
his old friends were embarrassed so badly when they were turned away at Graceland."
In the 1960s and '70s, Cash's occasional interactions with Presley were positive
but professional, and conducted from a distance. Cash recalled in his book,
"He and I chatted on the phone a couple of times and swapped notes now and again.
If he were closing at the Las Vegas Hilton as I was getting ready to open,
he'd wish me luck, that kind of thing — but that was about the extent of it."
Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42. That December, Johnny Cash recorded
the Johnny Cash Christmas Special, which included an all-star tribute to the King.
He was joined by the other two members of "The Million-Dollar Quartet," Carl Perkins and Jerry
Lee Lewis, as well as fellow Sun Records star Roy Orbison. The group then performed
the gospel standard "This Train is Bound for Glory" in Presley's honor, with Cash saying,
"He was a star, and he always was a star because all of us remember him,
and how he loved gospel songs, and how we liked him. This song is for Elvis."
The special also included performances of three songs that Presley had recorded. Cash
teamed up with the quartet The Statler Brothers to perform "Blue Christmas,"
a song Presley popularized in 1957. Perkins performed "Blue Suede Shoes," which he wrote
and initially recorded in 1955 before Elvis covered it in 1956. Lewis performed "Whole Lotta
Shakin' Goin' On," which he popularized in 1957 and Presley covered in 1971.
Johnny Cash was known for transcending the boundaries of genre and getting crowds — ranging
from devout Christians to prison inmates — on their feet. But by 1988, after three decades
of touring with countless rock 'n' roll icons, Cash had his own idea of which artist had the
best stage presence: the King himself. Cash said during a 1988 interview on The Late Late Show,
"The best performer? Probably Elvis Presley. I don't think anybody could touch him."
Cash expounded on just why Elvis stood out from the rest, saying
"He had a lot of rhythm. He was a very good singer. And
he was a fabulous performer in the way he moved the people."
"And not only the girls loved Elvis. But
every man backstage was standing in the wings watching Elvis. He had that charisma."
One thing is certain: we'll never see the likes of Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley again.
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