Musician who played with Johnny Cash says ‘one thing’ changed Man in Black – and it wasn’t fame

A musician who performed alongside Johnny Cash says “one thing” changed the Man in Black.

The Folsom Prison Blues and Hurt performer enjoyed a staggering musical career, collaborating with the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan. Cash’s career was revived with the American Recordings, though he had plenty of success in the 1950s and 1960s as a country performer responsible for some of the genre’s all-time greatest hits. Marshall Grant suggested the fame which came with success did not change the Ring of Fire singer, but addiction, which Cash had struggled with for much of his career. He wrote about his addictions in his autobiography, Cash, while Grant would speak about the “humble” songwriter who struggled with pills.

Speaking in an interview with Uncut, Grant said: “Success didn’t change John. He stayed very humble. He stood very thankful. The only thing that changed John, early in our career, these little pills came along. That changed him a bunch.

“But as far as success, that didn’t change him. He stayed the same JR. We all called him JR or John. I never called him Johnny in my entire life. It was the pills that created a lot of problems.” Grant went on to recall the first time he remembers Cash using pills, with the Man in Black doubtful he could perform after driving from Texas to Georgia.

Grant recalled: “John said, ‘I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can do this or not.’ I said, ‘Well, God knows we’ve been tired before, we can do it.’ Gordon turned to John and said, ‘Wait a minute.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out some innocent-looking pills… they looked like aspirin. And he handed John about six of them, or four, I didn’t count. And he said, ‘Here, take these, and you’ll make it through the night with no problems.’

“o John got a glass of water, took those pills. He was still tired at that point, but after he went on stage you could see him change – those pills were taking effect. And it made a different person out of him. He was jumping around, feeling really, really good. Well, he got some of those little pills from Gordon, and he took them.”

Grant notes that at this time, Cash would take the pills “when he felt he needed them,” but he “needed them more often” as time passed. The pills then “started changing him,” according to Grant, who says Cash “didn’t have much respect for anybody, or anything, and so it just got worse.”

He added: “…it got as bad as it could get and then still got worse. And he loved those things. He absolutely cherished them. He loved them like some people love a brother.”