The Big Fall Books Preview 2013: To adequately describe Johnny Cash: The Life, it helps to begin with the author. For more than thirty years, Robert Hilburn worked as a music critic at the Los Angeles Times, rubbing shoulders with the greats of the industry--Dylan, Lennon, Joplin, Springsteen, U2, and many others. But this tenderhearted, penetrating biography stands as an argument that he knew Johnny Cash best. Cash was an unlikely artist, born in debt-poor Arkansas to cotton farmers. He began working (and singing) in the fields at the age of five; and from there, Hilburn--who counted Cash as a friend and was the only music journalist at the famous Folsom Prison concert--draws from his extensive personal interviews with the singer, as well as new material from Cash’s inner circle, to create a biography that is both compassionate and clear-eyed. As he details the stunning rises and tortuous stumbles of The Man in Black, Hilburn conveys an intimate, consuming, human portrait of the drama, the art, and the purpose that made the man a legend. --Chris Schluep

The bare bones of Cash’s story are widely known: the singer-songwriter’s childhood years as a farmer’s son longing to make music, his early hits, his descent into substance abuse, his tumultuous personal and professional life. Here, Hilburn, who covered music for the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years, puts some meat on those bones. Did you know, for example, that when Cash moved to Memphis, he hadn’t heard of producer Sam Phillips, or Sun Records? And did you know that the lyrics of Cash’s early hit, Folsom Prison Blues, were lifted, not quite word-for-word, from Gordon Jenkins’ Crescent City Blues? The book is based on previously published material and on the author’s interviews, over the years, with numerous sources, including Cash and his family; Phillips; musicians such as Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty; and many of Cash’s friends and colleagues (each chapter is thoroughly sourced). It’s always tricky to call a biography definitive, but this one must surely come close. --David Pitt

Named one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2013 by Publishers Weekly

Named one of NPR's Great Reads of 2013

"A thorough and thoughtful portrait of the Man in Black and a deep appreciation of his artistry... Hilburn writes most powerfully about Cash's trajectory as an artist... His writing is as authoritative as it's engaging when he's discussing the singer-songwriter's music." -- Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"An excellent biography.... A story that's both larger and more fascinating than the legend.... Hilburn has created the definitive narrative of this 'symbol of American honor, compassion and struggle.' It's a biography worthy of its subject." -- USA Today

"The result of Hilburn's wrestling with his subject's life and with his own moral compass is perhaps the richest biography of a musician I have ever read, and one of the best biographies I have read, period.... Hilburn knows how to organize a life in print skillfully.... Hilburn is a first-rate stylist. His sentences often sing." -- Atlanta Journal Constitution

Named one of this fall's hottest biographies by Kirkus

"Veteran music writer Hilburn...masterfully separates fiction from fact in an exhaustive, but never exhausting, biography of the legendary musician...The personal knowledge aided by extensive archival research and always compelling, accessible writing makes this an instant-classic music biography with something to offer all generations of listeners." -- Kirkus (starred review)

"Drawing on his own interviews and personal experience with Cash, former L.A. Times music critic Hilburn exhaustively chronicles, almost year by year, Cash's rise to fame from his childhood in Dyess, Ark., through his stint in the military, the peak of his success in the 1970s with the Johnny Cash Show, and on to his slow decline in health in the 1990s.... Hilburn is a spellbinding storyteller." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A comprehensive and thoughtful biography, cognizant always of how hard it is for heroes to make it in America...Hilburn does an artful, enviable job of reconciling all the facets [of Cash]...[and] writes with a remarkably steady hand...JOHNNY CASH is measured and mindful, allowing of all the paradoxical bits that constitute a human life." -- Los Angeles Times

"Hilburn's "Johnny Cash: The Life" is the big biography Cash's fans have been waiting for since the singer's death in 2003 and Hilburn doesn't let them down." -- Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

"The ultimate Johnny Cash bio.... Rock writer great Robert Hilburn goes deep...." -- Rolling Stone

"'Do we really need another Johnny Cash book?' Yes, we really do, as it turns out, because Johnny Cash is so very good.... Hilburn's work is far and away the most insightful, entertaining, comprehensive, and well-told Cash biography to date." -- Slate

Robert Hilburn was the chief music critic and pop music editor for the Los Angeles Times for more than three decades. The author of the bestselling memoir Cornflakes with John Lennon, Hilburn has reported extensively on most of pop music's legends, including Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, U2, and Johnny Cash.