Johnny Cash’s appeal transcended boundaries of class, generation and geography. Describing a characteristic performance, Paul Hemphill, a country music historian, once wrote: “Cash, wearing all black, Cash with human suffering in his deep eyes and on his tortured face, Cash, insolent and lashing out from the stage, Cash, in a black swallowtail coat and striped morning pants like an elegant undertaker, Cash swinging his guitar around, pointing it at his listeners as though it were a tommy gun, all of these things captured the whole world.”