With twenty-seven historic recordings under her belt, the acclaimed
autobiography My Fears Are Gone, continuous concert appearances and
lineage to one of music’s most famous families, Joanne Cash has
countless tales to tell. But more than artistic accolades, her slew of
collaborations with brother Johnny Cash and having spent several years
working at the historic House of Cash hit making factory, the
singer/songwriter extraordinaire is driven by a deeper sense of eternal
purpose, despite times of trial and seasons of straying.

“My main purpose in this music is to win the lost and uplift the
downtrodden, Cash says of her brand new career-spanning compilation
Gospel. “I don’t think we have much time left before Christ comes again
and I want to be everything I can be for Jesus. I’ve seen so many
people try and build their kingdom in music, but I don’t worry about
any of that earthly gain. When you let God do it, that’s when the real
effectiveness happens.”

And roots in faith are exactly how Joanne remembers growing up in
the Cash family alongside Johnny, plus fellow siblings Reba, Jack,
Tommy, Roy and Louise. Some of her earliest memories from their Dyess,
Arkansas upbringing (the family later migrated to Nashville) were
singing spiritual standards in the cotton fields while working in the
steamy sun, after which the family would convene inside together for
old time radio programs.

“Air conditioning was having the front door and back door open and
we’d lay on the living room floor listening to gospel and country
music,” she reflects of real life scenes that would eventually be
played out in the box office smash I Walk the Line. “After dinner, we’d
gather at the upright piano and sing-a-long with our mother, who didn’t
know a note of music, but never missed a lick.”

While the close knit family stayed close to the Lord, the tragic
death of brother Jack during a mill accident sent shock waves through
everyone’s systems. Even though Joanne was very young at the time and
couldn’t understand the magnitude of his passing, fears began creeping
into her life, which became the initial catalyst for a period of
wandering.

“When I was nine-years-old, I walked the aisle at church and shook
hands with the preacher in hopes of being able to go to heaven and see
Jack,” she explains. “But I walked away afraid that God didn’t really
want me. The fears of rejection grew even stronger around high school
and I entered into a bad marriage shortly after I graduated.”

Following a move to Germany for three years and having a child in
the process, the confused newlywed turned to drugs and alcohol to ease
the pain. In time, the family grew to 3 children, moved to Houston,
Texas, though her personal pain and tumultuous family situation only
worsened.  

“I got to a point where I didn’t know what to do and I got a call
from Johnny saying ‘I know you need some help, but just listen. I’m
sending a moving van and you and the three children need to come
home,’” she recalls. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was not
only coming home to my family, but also coming home to Jesus. And there
we went leaving the ninety degree hot Houston weather and driving in a
1968 Ford Torino all the way to Nashville where it was freezing cold
and snowing- which seldom happens down here!”

As she looked up to the glowing sky of white flakes, the snow served
as a cleansing experience that led to her realizing God was indeed
real. Come October 18th, 1970, Joanne gave her heart to Jesus at a
small area church and began a brand new life. Aside from that spiritual
revelation, she simultaneously found a musical calling while working at
House of Cash, Johnny’s famed recording studio, office space and
musical museum.

“I learned so much about the music business and my desire to sing
increased rapidly,” offers a jovial Joanne. “I got involved in singing
at church and then sang at the Grand Ole Opry on Fridays from 1972-1976
with Jimmy Rodgers Snow’s ‘Grand Ole Gospel Time.’”

During that era, Joanne also met the new love of her life, Dr. Harry
Yates, whom she married on December 27, 1971. The couple soon dedicated
themselves to full time music ministry, traveling with her two
daughters in a car with their suitcases and instruments packed tightly
in the trunk. The group soon graduated to a van, then motor home and
finally a bus throughout their fifteen years of full time preaching and
singing the gospel, but they felt called off the road come 1990.

“The Lord woke up my husband one day when we were touring throughout
Canada and told him to cancel his meetings and head back to Nashville,”
she contends. “The Lord told him that my mother would pass away within
a year and she did exactly nine months from that day. But it was a
beautiful thing to go home because Mama and I got even closer. Just to
be with her and hear her dreams and prayers for us was so inspiring.”

The couple founded Nashville Cowboy Church just 6 months before her
mother’s untimely demise, which started with a mere six people in the
Sweetwater Lounge of a local Holiday Inn. It gradually multiplied into
two hundred attendees, then doubled to four hundred, after which it
transferred to the sizable Texas Troubadour Theatre (adjacent to the
Opryland Hotel), where Joanne continues to sing every Sunday.
Aside from area services, Cash hosts frequent concert engagements, such
as a Tuesday night residency at the Wyndham Vacation Resort where she
shares a variety of original and gospel/country covers, plus tidbits of
the Cash family testimony. But her latest CD Gospel encompasses each of
these elements, including several historic selections featuring
Johnny’s vocals, lyrics and/or narration.

The disc includes “Glory Glory,” a bold expression of faith relating
to Jack’s death and the fact that all the siblings will again be united
in heaven. Her husband wrote “Cotton, Popcorn, Peanuts and Jesus” (the
basic fabric of what Joanne was raised on), while “Kicking Up Gravel”
is an inspirational selection about a prostitute who undergoes the
salvation experience. The album also features the classic covers “It Is
Well With My Soul,” “Life’s Rail Way To Heaven,” “Why Not Tonight?,”
“Will the Circle Be Unbroken?,” “I Was There When It Happened,” plus
“I’ve Got Jesus In My Soul.”

“Into the Blue” is a gripping tale of her husband’s near death
experience during a double by-pass surgery where he saw a glimpse of
heaven, while the Johnny penned “Meet Me in Heaven” was one of the last
songs he and Joanne sang together before his wife June Carter Cash made
her heavenly passage. Johnny’s 1979 standard “Welcome Back Jesus” is
also included, as is the vintage church hymn “Let the Lower Lights Be
Burning.”

“Johnny always told the story about when our daddy was dying in a
coma that the family was all holding hands and praying and singing that
song,” she exclaims about that latter track. “But he opened his eyes
from that coma and started singing praises, ready to go on and be with
the Lord.”

Additional cornerstone cuts include “When He Comes”, which features
Johnny’s spoken word introduction about writing the song in Jerusalem
when standing in the Biblically outlined spot where Christ could quite
possibly return. The last two tracks Joanne and Johnny ever recorded
together included “Lower Lights” and “Softly and Tenderly,” which is
highlighted by Joanne’s sweet disposition and Johnny’s weakening but
inspiring voice that signifies a genuine, holy-spirit directed moment.

“I’m amazed that at my age I still want to sing, but it’s like
therapy for me,” she summarizes. “I’d say 2003 was one of the hardest
years of my life since we lost four family members - our oldest sister
Louise, June, Johnny and June’s daughter Rosie- but it’s like a prayer
that lifts me up and it rests me when I’m tired. Johnny always helped
me remember that and he was constantly encouraging. But there was one
short phrase from Johnny that’s always stuck with me and it’s one I’ll
continue for as long as I’m here: ‘Baby, just keep on singing!’”