Happy 77th

Johnny Cash would have been 77 years old today.

Johnny Cash’s music was one of the few things my father and I agreed on. I’ve loved his music since I was a little kid. I loved the way he broke down boundaries between genres, the way he championed people he felt had been left behind by this unforgiving culture: American indians, those behind bars, people dying in our wasteful wars, the youth despised by his contemporaries. Not as some kind of saint, mind you, just a talented man who brought a little more beauty and understanding into a world little interested in either.

Ten years ago, this coming July, I was in the audience at the Bottom Line (homeless now for several years … eff you, NYU!), when June Carter Cash was performing there to promote her album Press On.

One of country music’s matriarchs was spending the night reminiscing, with her husband, Johnny Cash, occasionally lending support. Mr. Cash, looking stronger than he has in a while, joined in on A. P. Carter’s hymn and shared the microphone with Ms. Cash on two earlier duets.

”I knew when I heard it that it was mine and her song,” he said as the pair began ”Far Side Banks of Jordan,” a Terry Smith composition about love lasting into the afterlife. The performance was poignant because Mr. Cash is publicly facing down mortality as he copes with a degenerative neurological disorder.

The mood lightened when the couple kicked into the peppery 1967 hit ”Jackson.” Mr. Cash wiggled his legs Elvis-style and Ms. Cash responded by flinging back her long brown hair and loosely shimmying. Their playfulness grew romantic when Mr. Cash ended the song by enveloping his wife in a gentle kiss.

She was a little bawdy, very playful, throughout the show, and it was a real joy to see Johnny, come out on stage to join her. The love between them was palpable, and we all could have not been in that great old caberet watching as he kissed her.

That performance is a memory I will treasure for the rest of my days.