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Walk The Line, the biopic based on legendary country musician Johnny Cash running in the city, portrays a talented and volatile legend
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photo: ap
DEMIGOD Johnny Cash was one of the icons on par with the likes of Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan
The 78th Annual Academy Awards had Reese Witherspoon walk away with the Best Actress statuette for Walk The Line for her he role as June Carter, wife of the legendary country musician Johnny Cash. The movie is the fascinating tale of the guitar-sporting Cash who created deep, strong music that spoke of heartbreaks and survival in an unimaginably dark and brutal world.
The "man in black", as the late Cash was popularly known, is rated on par with iconic musicians such as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles. His unique genre of music, which combined rock, country and blues, led him to be listed in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame. His songwriting skills too were path-breaking and tracks such as "I Walk the Line" and "Hurt" are highly sensitive and speak of human struggle, loneliness and rebellion.
Johnny Cash, at the peak of his career, was known for his spectacularly volatile behaviour thanks to a drug addiction. Ironically, this was the period when he delivered his most powerful hits including "Ring of Fire" and this period also marked his affair with June Carter (he was married then to Vivian Liberto). The song was co-written by her and described her personal conflicts of being in love with a married man who was addicted to alcohol and drugs to boot. Cash's career grew by leaps and bounds even after the 1960s when he finally got married to Carter and dedicated his album Flesh And Blood to her.
Then followed was a series of live performance albums, and just as he seemed to be disappearing from the headlines, he released his best-selling autobiography titled Man in Black, which sold a whopping 1.3 million copies.
A sequel to this book was called Cash: The Autobiography. Cash, who often indulged in self-parody, even released a hilarious song titled "Chicken in Black".
The Oscar-winning movie starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon is directed by James Mangold (of Girl Interrupted fame), and narrates the story of Cash's earlier life, his musical beginnings and his "journey to hell and back", finally culminating in the famous 1968 concert, after which his songs outsold even those of The Beatles. Phoenix was also a contender in the Best Actor category, but lost out to Capote star Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The movie based on the life story of a man who began his concerts by saying "Hi, I'm Johnny Cash" has just hit the screens in the city.
A. VISHNU
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Pondicherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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