Nine choices

This work is a cultural biography of a self-made American icon. For much of his career, Johnny Cash opened his shows with the tagline, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." This introduction seemed unnecessary, since everyone in the audience knew who he was, the famous musical artist whose career spanned almost five decades, whose troubled life on and off the stage received wide publicity, and whose cragged face seemed to express a depth and intensity not found in any other artist, living or dead. For Cash, as for many celebrities, renown was the product of both hard work and luck. Often a visionary and…