The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash

by Dave Urbanski

Who Was Johnny Cash? Rock star? Country boy? Folk hero? Preacher? Poet? Drug addict? Rebel? Sinner? Saint? In truth, the Man in Black lived long enough and hard enough to embody all of the above-and much, much more. He was a musical legend, a one-of-a-kind communicator, an American icon-but you could never pigeonhole him or pin him down. You never completely knew him...or what he was going to do next. Cash's faith in God was no different: "I'm still a Christian, as I have been all my life," he once said. "Beyond that I get complicated." Cash's faith wasn't smooth, slick, or sweet-it was grizzled, challenged, broken, and messy. Worlds away from perfect. But it was transparent ... and real. Always real. The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash explores with vivid, narrative detail the wild ups and downs, the highs and lows, the ebbs and flows, that took place within this man's soul-from beginning to end. It's his spiritual chronicle. His sacred story-yet one that no doubt describes, in one way or another, where we've all been...and perhaps where we're all going. Foreword by Dan Haseltine, Lead Singer for Jars of Clay

Genres: Biography, Music, Nonfiction, Christianity, Theology, Religion, Spirituality

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

"I think I just like to share my faith, you know? I don't preach to people. I don't ever push it on anybody, and I wouldn't sing a gospel song at any show if I didn't think the people would enjoy it . . . I'm not out there tryin' to convince people, just to spread a little 'Good News.'" -- Johnny Cash, from the intro

Although since supplanted by a number of excellent books from the last or so ten years - such as Robert Hillburn's thorough biography Cash: A Life, Richard Beck's discography-oriented Trains, Jesus, and Murder: The Gospel According to Johnny Cash, and most recently with Michael Stewart Foley's outstanding Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash - Urbanski's The Man Comes Around is still a fairly good book. It apparently went to print just prior to Cash's passing in autumn 2003, and much of its biographical section, while serviceable enough, pales somewhat compared to the works mentioned above. However, its strength would be within the final chapters, which cover Cash's late career resurgence (or would that be resurrection?) when he partnered with the shrewd producer Rick Rubin to issue four American Recordings discs during his remaining years. Cash came back amazingly strong when he covered - often with the first-rate backing band of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - such tunes as Soundgarden's 'Rusty Cage' and Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt' (which has to be paired with its music video for best results), and then provided the perfect coda to his vocational calling with the superb self-penned Biblical-themed song which gives this book its title.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

My dad grew up (literally) just down the road from the Cash family in northeast Arkansas, and my uncle later married Johnny’s sister, so I’ve always had an interest in the “Man in Black.” J.R. Cash grew up in an environment of faith and at the start of his career, desired only to sing gospel music. Yet he also had a great capacity for sin, and it manifested itself regularly as he became a national star on the music scene. But no matter the roller-coaster that was his life, he always came back to the faith that he grew up on. This is a compelling account of Johnny’s life and career, with a focus on his faith and walk with God, and I really enjoyed it.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you think you've read everything there is to read about Johnny Cash, then read this. Dave Urbanski gets behind the pill-popping, sink-smashing, rock and roll image perpetuated by Hollywood and Nashville, revealing the genuine and explicit Christian faith that Cash maintained throughout his life.

This isn't a sordid rock odyssey made suddenly dull by a "road to Damascus moment" later in life. Cash's commitment to Christ came in his childhood, and, contrary to the popular image, it meant a lot more to him than just singing some ol' timey gospel tunes in his sets. Through the rise to fame, his affair with June, his pill addiction, the shifting phases of his career, Urbanski makes it clear that even in Cash's darkest moments, he had an explicit faith in Jesus. It obviously had its ups and downs, and was renewed powerfully in the early 70s, but it was always there.

Urbanski also looks more closely Cash's explicitly at Christian works, often overlooked - his beginnings as a gospel singer, his 1986 novel about the Apostle Paul ("Man in White"), crusading with Billy Graham, recording the whole NKJV Bible, soundtracking "The Gospel Road" (a 1973 film touring the Holy Land).

Yet Cash is never made out to be a saint in this. The book is full of the admissions of Cash and others that he could be "the worst of all sinners". A repeated phrase is Kris Kristofferson's line on Cash: "He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction" - a line Cash himself endorsed!

Urbanski details a watershed moment for Cash (tactically left out of "Walk The Line") where, in the depths of addiction in the early 1970s, Cash literally crawls into a cave to die. However, through a combination of his prayers and the arrival of June and her father, he gets out and his life begins to turn around. Cash's relationship with his father-in-law is a particular highlight of the book at this point- key to his Christian growth, and something many Cash fans may not be aware of.

Cash was a lot like Elvis; he wanted to sing gospel a heck of a lot more than he wanted to sing country or rock and roll. But, as with Elvis, his own vices and Hollywood's disdain for explicit Christianity means that his faith is either ignored or relegated to minimal importance. But Cash knew well the Jesus he believed in. He knew his Bible and read it constantly. You can see that best in the below quote, from an interview where a journalist pressed Cash with the question "what KIND of Christian are you?"

""I—as a believer that Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, the Christ of the Greeks, was the Anointed One of God (born of the seed of David, upon faith as Abraham has faith, and it was accounted to him for righteousness)—am grafted onto the true vine, and am one of the heirs of God's covenant with Israel... I'm a Christian. Don't put me in another box"

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah, yeah. Everyone thinks they know who is Johnny Cash. Or at least they know what they think they know. Musician, Outlaw, druggie, gospel singer, the man in black. This book tells a bit different story. It does not gloss over the struggles and the misdeeds of Cash. It does not paint the man a saint. It does tell of his growth as a Christian, generally 3 steps forward and 2 steps back until his last years. The book starts at the beginning and takes the reader to the end of the line for Cash when he maintained a more consistent pattern of growth.

The book is definitely worth reading. It's like you will find points with which you identify and those you do not. In the end, you will have a much better image of a person who looks one way on the outside, but on the inside, a battle rages. Maybe you will be familiar with the battle?

[Tim Armstrong · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fourth book regarding Johnny Cash and religion that I've read in the last 4 months. None of them have been good.

I was very disappointed in this book. It is a basic biography of Cash, regurgitating the Cash story as it was understood in 2003. There are aspects of Cash's life in this book that have been greatly sanitized or skipped over. Not one ounce of original research was done, and the book basically boiled down to a compilation of quotes pulled from Cash's two autobiographies that the author used to try and make their points. It's subtitle is "The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash" but it could easily be forgotten while reading it. Sure religion is touched upon, but it is not explored even remotely close enough to warrant that subtitle.

This book was published in Nov. 2003, a short two months following Cash's death. I have to assume it was in production while he was still alive, but the book does end with his death and I am concerned that it was rushed to release in the wake of Cash's death. If that is the case, it shows.

[ISH · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since there’s no 3,5 stars and 4 seems a bit much, I’m going with 3. In the first half the book leans heavily on Cash’s autobiography, and is not very critical of the American icon and his spiritual journey. It paints a positive picture of Cash and leaves out dark periods that have since come to light. At times the book felt as a tie in to the movie I walk the line: guy gets famous, starts using drugs, gets of drugs, marries the girl…and als most finishing with ‘lives happily ever after...’ Sounds like quite the story if that was what happened. The reality wasn’t as simple.

The second half of the book has much to say about the music that Cash released, especially the Mercury years and beyond, which was awesome (we get it mr. Urbanski ;-) ), but not really the topic of the book.

Nice to read, but better books out there about Cash’s life and spiritual journey.

[Stephanie Schlangen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Johnny Cash. I have always found his story and his life to be inspiring. He was truly one of the greatest and a legend. However, I was not a huge fan of the book. I found it to be very repetitive and thought some of the stories that were shared were irrelevant. Had a hard time getting through the end of the book.

[Noreen Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about Johnny Cash. I learned a lot about him and come out with more respect for him. I am definitely his fan.

[Mary Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous read. If you are a fan of the Man in Black, it is a must read.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

The complexities of Cash's personality will keep biographers busy for years. Johnny Cash was a man of baffling contradictions. Steve Turner, in his superior bio., The Man Called Cash (2004) relays an event that is illustrative: Cash goes shooting and wounds a crow. He is so moved with compassion for the bird that he goes to great lengths to nurse it back to health. Turner writes, "...it encapsulated Cash's contradictions. Here was a man, though capable of destruction, who became overwhlemed with the desire to repair what he had destroyed; a nonviolent man who had a love affair with guns; an artist who could cause suffering and then turn that suffering into art..."

Cash's Christian faith was deep and abiding and passionate, but complex. Urbanski makes a good effort at portraying this, and generally succeeds. It is lovingly written and organized (if somewhatly shallow at times). Don't look for much critical engagemnet -- this is pure hagiography. I really should subtract one star for publishing this with "Relevent Books." What a STUPID name! Proof positive they are irrelevent.

Publisher aside, this book is a must have for diehard Cash fans. But if you are only going to get one bio., definitely make it the Turner one.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all, the anticipation I had for this book was unmet. While there is a certain level of fulfillment in reading it, the writing itself detracted much from what could have been a deep, emotional, spiritual journey. It seemed to me that the writer, flexing his pen in book form for perhaps the first time, was not up to the task of writing what ostensibly should have been a spiritual autobiography, but instead served as a collection of extensive quotes from Cash's own autobiographies. As the book went on, it got worse. The first half - good to decent. And once Cash recovered from drug abuse and entered his Christian walk, the book was more focused on espousing his album-by-album thoughts in a clearly subjective way. Once the timeline entered the 1980's, it essentially became a book of Album reviews.

All in all, I'm glad I read it because I do understand more of who Johnny Cash was. When reading the section vaguely detailing the experience of wife June Carter Cash's death, I teared up...something books don't do to me. Really, the only redemptive quality that sticks out in the last 150 pages.

So, read it if you are a fan of Johnny Cash. Otherwise, just pick up Cash by Johnny Cash. Which, it turns out, is what I will do soon.

[Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnny wasn't just The Man in Black, he was THE MAN. The coolest man who has ever lived. Period. And this book is one way of documenting that fact.

You'll be engrossed in this telling of Johnny's life with a specific focus on how he lived a thoroughly human, deeply flawed life full of addictions, personal struggles, domestic and marital troubles, near suicide attempts, and more, all while remaining a steadfast believer in God and follower of Christ. Or, as a quote from Johnny in the book best sums up his own struggles...and I bet a lot of ours: "I have been a Christian all my life. Beyond that, I get complicated."

Whether you're a Christian or not, Johnny's story stands as a great example of how we all, in one way or another, experience struggles between living freewill human lives on one hand and more fulfilled spiritual lives on the other...no matter what our personal belief systems are.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first introduction to the life of the man behind the music (aside from a few articles here and there), which is why it has a special place on my shelf. In fact, it has its own shelf alongside his albums. I'm a fan of the music and the man. As the title says, this is his life from a spiritual perspective and the events recalled are told of in such light. I understand that this work is hardly a complete biography, but I feel that what the author did choose to include is pertinent and meaningful. This is an enjoyable read for its target audience.

[Alanda Coon · Rating 2 out of 5]

while I find Johnny Cash & his relationship with spirituality fascinating, I think I need to read a real biography. This book is essentially a series of quotes from other sources. it is well researched, but doesn't quite flow cohesively, like a real book would. it was worth it for me to read, but unless you are super interested in Johnny Cash, i wouldn't bother.

[Shane Blackshear · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you only read one Johnny Cash biography, read this one. I say that half way sarcastically because as much as I LOVE Johnny Cash, the world probably didn't need another JC biography, however this one seperates itself from the pack by focusing like the title says, on the spiritual journey of JC.
Its a great read even for the casual fan.

[Dena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book. It wasn't written in a story format - more like little episodes - but I still enjoyed reading about Johnny Cash's spiritual journey. Not always on the right track but still hearing God's voice.

[Joshua Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It brought me to tears in the end. I read the final chapters listening to the "American" series of albums, and his apocalyptic message comes across clearly in spite of his advancing age.

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

[Heather P]

I'm in the middle of this book. I've been in the middle of this book. I already gave away two of my copies to friends before I finished :(

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically a research paper, this book reports on and evaluates the various books and articles that touch on Johnny Cash's spiritual life. Very interesting.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in 2 days...... I couldn't put it down....

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The "Man in Black." - enough said!

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books about the Man in Black!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only does it give a good overview of what Johnny Cash believed, it functions as a nice biography of the man as well. Highly recommended for fans of Johnny Cash.