In 1998, his second album with Rick Rubin (Unchained) won a Grammy for Best Country Album, this after he’d been dropped by Columbia and considered washed-up by the marketing drones of Music Row in Nashville. See, Johnny wasn’t a buff twangy guy in a hat and Wranglers, and that’s what they wanted to sell. To hear folks like Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, and Robbie Fulks tell it, that’s still all they’re interested in selling.

In appreciation of the “support” Cash’s records had received from Country radio (despite critical and commercial success with the pop & rock audience), Rubin and Cash published an advertisement in Billboard based on the (in)famous photo of Cash at right. Click the picture to see the ad (new window).

Said Willie Nelson at the time, “John speaks for all of us.”