Johnny Cash

By 1968, Johnny Cash had already gained what most musicians can only dream of: fame, fortune and a seeming endless following of fans. But to Cash, his life was empty. According to friends, he claimed to have "tried every drug there was." His first marriage had failed. And he was terribly lonely. In the spring of that year, under the clouded influence of drugs, he went to Nackajack Cave in Marion County, Tennessee in an attempt to kill himself. As he descended deeper into the cave, trying to lose himself and "just die," he passed out on the floor. He said that he was exhausted and feeling at the end of his rope when he felt God's presence in his heart and managed to struggle out of the cave by following a faint light and slight breeze. To Cash, it was his own rebirth.

After that, this outlaw was still the "Man in Black." But he had a new focus, as well as appreciation of God. Now, he wore black "on behalf of the poor and hungry, on behalf of the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, and on behalf of those who have been betrayed by age or drugs."

You can almost close your eyes and hear his deep bass-baritone voice. It's wonderfully unmistakable. And even though he considered himself a "troubled Christian" to the day he died, I'd like to believe that that epiphany Cash had fortysome years ago in a cave in rural Tennessee might have been his biggest break of all. And if God has a voice that we can hear, I'd like to believe it sounds like that of Johnny Cash.