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61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Required Reading for any Cash Curriculum, January 3, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash (Paperback)
Do not begin this book if you have other commitments. It demands to be devoured in great gulps, not unlike the Man in Black's approach to life. Urbanski effectively chronicles Cash's thundering full-throttle trek through 71 years with both feet on the gas. This book drags the reader over Cash's rocky road, with no protection from the bumps and bruises but with full access to the amazing scenic turnouts. Cash's journey often embraced extremes and excesses but it also resulted in a life full to the brim with victory, failure, tragedy, love, sin, grace, and forgiveness. As Urbanski pulled me from one page to the next, a quote I remember as Gandhi's continually came to mind: "I have often considered being a follower of Christ except for Christians." Had they known each other, Cash would have given Gandhi ample cause to reject Jesus. Cash was a man who knew first-hand the depths to which humanity can sink. Urbanski's research brings these depths to life with rage, chronic substance abuse, collapsed relationships and other failures splattered across the pages. These dark inconsistencies of Cash's life, however, make a stunning backdrop for the brilliance of his many successes. What shines through the pages most clearly, however, is the fact that Cash readily owned his failings and gratefully fell on the grace of a God willing to save him anyway. In this, Cash saw what Gandhi apparently did not: that Christ came for sinners, failures, and losers, not for perfect people who needed no Savior. This book uniquely strikes the heart of what Johnny Cash held most dear, rendering it required reading for anyone wishing to know the man. With artful attention to detail, Urbanski covers his canvas with an extensive array of colors that blend to a truly rich, deep shade of Black. The book's strong focus on musical review may at times distract those with less interest in Cash's songs and more interest in his soul. (Music aficionados, however, will enjoy the feast.) Still, every reader will be truly inspired by the life of this broken man who lived with his feet in the dirt, his eyes on Heaven, and his hand in God's.
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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
2nd best Cash bio I know, November 20, 2004
This review is from: The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash (Paperback)
The complexities of Cash's personality will keep biographers busy for years. Johnny Cash was a man of baffling contradictions. Steve Turner, in his superior bio., The Man Called Cash (2004) relays an event that is illustrative: Cash goes shooting and wounds a crow. He is so moved with compassion for the bird that he goes to great lengths to nurse it back to health. Turner writes, "...it encapsulated Cash's contradictions. Here was a man, though capable of destruction, who became overwhlemed with the desire to repair what he had destroyed; a nonviolent man who had a love affair with guns; an artist who could cause suffering and then turn that suffering into art..."
Cash's Christian faith was deep and abiding and passionate, but complex. Urbanski makes a good effort at portraying this, and generally succeeds. It is lovingly written and organized (if somewhatly shallow at times). Don't look for much critical engagemnet -- this is pure hagiography. I really should subtract one star for publishing this with "Relevent Books." What a STUPID name! Proof positive they are irrelevent.
Publisher aside, this book is a must have for diehard Cash fans. But if you are only going to get one bio., definitely make it the Turner one.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
From Rebellion to Redemption, Cash book pays dividends, December 4, 2003
This review is from: The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash (Paperback)
Beyond the surface image of Johnny Cash as the "man in black," there was a roiling sea of contradiciton and conflict: Cash was a deeply spiritual human being, even as he wrestled with a host of demons that snapped at his soul like hellhounds. Cash has inspired performers from every corner of popular music, from Kid Rock and Trent Reznor to U2's Bono (who declares that any man is "a sissy" next to Cash). And here, in a punchy, sinewy style befitting his subject, author Dave Urbanski traces Cash's walk towards salvation, stumbles and all. This is no sugar-coated tome that ties all of the loose ends together in a nice bow. What Urbanski has achieved through painstaking research is a portrait that shows Cash for what he is--deeply flawed, yet worthy of deep awe. Perhaps because Cash was so honest about his shortcomings--both in his life and art--his spiritual quest resonated with so many, from upstanding evangelical Christians to the thieves and murderers he sang for at Folsom and San Quentin. Urbanski plunges the reader headfirst into the heartbreak and triumph, the creative ferment and personal torment. It is a book not to be missed, whether you a fan of Cash, country music, or a reader fascinated by the arc of an artist's life that was full of paradox and passion. Lou Carlozo
Columnist/ Paste Magazine
Chicago, Ill.
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