Today would have been the 78th birthday of singing legend Johnny Cash. He died in 2003 at the age of 71.
It’s also the official release date of his latest record, American Recordings VI: Ain’t No Grave.
Both National Public Radio and Rolling Stone magazine look back on his long career.
Coincidentally, the 10 billionth song downloaded from iTunes was Cash’s 1958 hit “Guess Things Happen That Way.” The Apple milestone happened just yesterday.
The download was by Louie Sulcer, a 71 year-old man in Woodstock, Georgia. Mr. Sulcer was given a $10,000 gift card to iTunes. Woodstock has a population of 14,239, so Mr. Sulcer could afford to buy almost every citizen a song by the Black Eyed Peas, or almost every household a copy of New Moon on DVD (he’d have to pre-order that, and it wouldn’t be in HD).
In honor of Cash’s birthday, here are a pair of videos:
(Johnny on TV a long time ago.)
(Johnny with the Statler Brothers singing along… and the brothers doing another number.)