Large_Al
09-19-2006, 08:52 AM
I just got Gary Allan's "Tough All Over" CD the other day and it's very good.
One of the songs Nickajack Cave (Johnny Cash's Redemptions) is a good song that I didn't know if it was fact or fiction. I did some research and it turns out to be true here is the story of Nickajack Cave and Johnny Cash.
Johnny Cash Walked the Line
(http://www.explorefaith.org/music/cash.html)By Christopher Stratton (http://www.explorefaith.org/bio/stratton.html)
There used to be a place near the Tennessee River just north of Chattanooga known as Nickajack Cave. It took its name from the tribe of Indians slaughtered there by Andrew Jackson and his army. The opening of the cave was 150 feet wide by 50 feet high, and because of its depth, it presented a formidable place to hide. It was also used as a refuge during the Civil War. Confederate soldiers holed up there during the battle of Lookout Mountain, and before the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the cave opening, it was rumored that the ghosts of both sets of the dead—Indians and Confederates--haunted the cave.
One night, at the pinnacle of his career and the height of his musical power, Johnny Cash, high on amphetamines and full of despair, drove down to Nickajack Cave to kill himself. He knew the cave from going there to search for Civil War and Native American artifacts, and he was well acquainted with the fact that many spelunkers had died deep inside Nickajack’s byzantine architecture. He wanted death, and the cave was just the place for it. “If I crawled in far enough,” he said, “I’d never be able to find my way back out, and nobody would be able to locate me until after I was dead. . .” So he crawled on his hands and knees for what seemed like hours in the pitch black, doped out of his mind, until his flashlight ran out. Completely disoriented and alone, Johnny Cash lay down in the belly of Nickajack cave to die. That was the fall of 1967.
How he eventually arrived at that cave goes back to his childhood. The son of a cotton farmer in Arkansas, young J.R. (as he was then called) lived with his parents and brothers on a co-op farm, picking cotton as soon as he was old enough to shoulder half a day-laborer’s sack.
The Cash family was poor, but what they lacked financially they made up for in familial bonds. J.R. was particularly close to his oldest brother Jack. They would spend long hours in the fields, getting into all sorts of mischief and defending one another from their obdurate father. According to J.R., Jack was the strong one; he was full of promise and worthy of the entirety of a younger brother’s admiration. J.R. idealized Jack. He saw in his older brother everything he thought he wasn’t but wanted to be --someone who was strong, Christian and doted upon by his Father.
Click link up top for the rest of the story
One of the songs Nickajack Cave (Johnny Cash's Redemptions) is a good song that I didn't know if it was fact or fiction. I did some research and it turns out to be true here is the story of Nickajack Cave and Johnny Cash.
Johnny Cash Walked the Line
(http://www.explorefaith.org/music/cash.html)By Christopher Stratton (http://www.explorefaith.org/bio/stratton.html)
There used to be a place near the Tennessee River just north of Chattanooga known as Nickajack Cave. It took its name from the tribe of Indians slaughtered there by Andrew Jackson and his army. The opening of the cave was 150 feet wide by 50 feet high, and because of its depth, it presented a formidable place to hide. It was also used as a refuge during the Civil War. Confederate soldiers holed up there during the battle of Lookout Mountain, and before the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the cave opening, it was rumored that the ghosts of both sets of the dead—Indians and Confederates--haunted the cave.
One night, at the pinnacle of his career and the height of his musical power, Johnny Cash, high on amphetamines and full of despair, drove down to Nickajack Cave to kill himself. He knew the cave from going there to search for Civil War and Native American artifacts, and he was well acquainted with the fact that many spelunkers had died deep inside Nickajack’s byzantine architecture. He wanted death, and the cave was just the place for it. “If I crawled in far enough,” he said, “I’d never be able to find my way back out, and nobody would be able to locate me until after I was dead. . .” So he crawled on his hands and knees for what seemed like hours in the pitch black, doped out of his mind, until his flashlight ran out. Completely disoriented and alone, Johnny Cash lay down in the belly of Nickajack cave to die. That was the fall of 1967.
How he eventually arrived at that cave goes back to his childhood. The son of a cotton farmer in Arkansas, young J.R. (as he was then called) lived with his parents and brothers on a co-op farm, picking cotton as soon as he was old enough to shoulder half a day-laborer’s sack.
The Cash family was poor, but what they lacked financially they made up for in familial bonds. J.R. was particularly close to his oldest brother Jack. They would spend long hours in the fields, getting into all sorts of mischief and defending one another from their obdurate father. According to J.R., Jack was the strong one; he was full of promise and worthy of the entirety of a younger brother’s admiration. J.R. idealized Jack. He saw in his older brother everything he thought he wasn’t but wanted to be --someone who was strong, Christian and doted upon by his Father.
Click link up top for the rest of the story