Paring Down The House of Cash

Someday Johnny Cash will be afforded one of those 5 or 600 page bios that Elvis, Bing Crosby and Sam Cooke have gotten. Until then Michael Streissguth's economical 290 page Johnny Cash will do. Streissguth has written about Cash in two previous books, but never a bio. He knows and likes his subject, even though he spends too much time debunking Hollywood's treatment of Cash in Ring Of Fire. But the book really kicks in at the halfway point, when Streissguth dissects Cash's fall from the charts, pre-Rick Rubin. He's skeptical of those latter comeback recordings, but spot on when describing Cash's overlooked Mercury years. This is a slimline version of the Cash story. There will be more to come, but few will get there this effectively in so short a tome.