Johnny Cash

Out of a desire towards all things modern or avant-garde, I spent most of my twenties rejecting simplicity. I thought that only type of culture worth anyone's time had to be complicated, elaborate, intricate,labyrinthine. The only sort of language that interested me were for lack of a better term "Joycean". The more involved one had to get to comprehend the communication, the more sophisticated the expression, the higher its qualitative value.

Johnny Cash freed me to appreciate the profundity of simple, direct expression. The virtosity of saying exactly want you mean in a manner that still elevates its subject matter. With this I came closer to appreciating the beauty of the common man. The value of the salt of the earth. The mysteries that can only be approached through the mud, and the blood, and the beer.

Johnny Cash allowed me to be an American Artist. He opened up my mind to the heritage of the American Artist. It was thourgh him that I understood Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, The Blues, The Ballad.