Johnny Cash was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980 — and on this day 12 years later, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame afforded him the same honor.
It was a natural fit. For all his Southern raising and lyrics about gunfighters, trains and prison, Cash was very much rock & roll. He represented the genre not only in his take-no-shit spirit — and his penchant for symbolic black clothing — but in a string of songs recorded at the birthplace of rock & roll, Sun Records. Among them: "I Walk the Line," "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" and "Folsom Prison Blues." Cash performed the rockabilly rave-up "Big River," another gem from those Sun sessions, at his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with help from some A-list guests. (Watch the performance, along with a portion of Cash's speech, above.)
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