LIFE Unseen: Johnny Cash

LIFE partners with Sony Music Entertainment and its vast archive of photography to launch a new series of special books: LIFE Unseen, surprising looks at some of our most legendary stars. We kick off the series with Johnny Cash, who passed away 10 years ago, but it seems like he has never left us.

There have been iconic American performers whose lives seemed even larger than their stage personas. Then there was Johnny Cash, unique and-yes-transcendent. He is seen as a country singer, but he is also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Gospel Hall of Fame. Coming out of Arkansas, rebellious and an early adherent of rockabilly (he was part of Sun Studios' Million Dollar Quartet, along with Elvis, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis), he found his audience. Cash was also a TV star and he formed supergroups with other top recording artists. Movies were made about the Man in Black, and he would have been calcified as a "legend" had he not been so genuine.

LIFE was at its apex when Cash "arrived," and this special volume includes that great photography, interviews with Cash and his family-as well as his soul mate, June Carter Cash, in a special section-and, of course, the never-before-seen imagery.

Johnny Cash lives on through his eternal music and personal story-and through this tribute that presents, perhaps even reveals, the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, as you've never seen him.