Vivian and Johnny Cash

Today I had a stack of books and CDs to return to the library, so I was browsing the new book shelf and came across the memoir of Johnny Cash's first wife, Vivian. I'm not much of a Cash fan or even a celebrity hound, but I love to look at the old photos, and I could see the book was full of them. I took it to a lounge chair and read most of the text that wasn't photocopies of the letters (I think I read at another site that they had written about 10,000 pages--a regular John and Abigail Adams, they were) or photographs. After (or during) his drug problem and affair with and later marriage to June Carter, Vivian pretty much retires from public view and leads a quiet life with her second husband. I think they were married 12 years and had four daughters. But June died before John, so Vivian and John sort of make up and they agree (according to her) that she should write "their" story. If you've known any of these "I had nothing to do with the divorce" second marriages, you'll probably believe Vivian.

But what makes this interesting is a few lines in the book about "Ring of Fire," which she says was written by Johnny while they were still married, and that he told Vivian he planned to give June (just a friend and performer) one-half the credit because she needed the money. He also told her it is about a woman's vagina. Based on the memoir, the story about who wrote it was tracked to witnesses (it was written on a fishing trip), and apparently now there is a law suit by his four daughters (and maybe by Vivian's second husband, since some of the millions would have been hers). It wouldn't be the first time good old dad neglected the children of wife number one when it came to the estate, but in this case it involves millions in royalties, and his son by Carter has control of that.

Again, I have no dog in this fight, I'm not a fan. However, based on the fact that Vivian stayed completely quiet and out of his life all those 40 years when she could have made things really difficult for the famous pair, I'd go with her story. Vivian died before the book was published last fall.