ENCORE: Tara Cash Schwoebel Interview 2016

On December 22, 2016 Tara Cash Schwoebel graciously shared some recollections about her dad for the Johnny Cash Infocenter. She talks about her favorite songs, being on the road with her father, and their shared interests in non-musical artistic endeavours, and her then-recent book.

Interview by Jeff Emond.

1. Did you like your father’s music from a young age? Have you always admired his music, or was there some point where you feel you went from liking it as a daughter to liking the music as a fan?

I've always enjoyed my fathers music and have always found it comforting to hear him sing. I was six years old when my parents divorced and I have distinct memories of asking my Dad to sing “Five Feet High and Rising” so many times when he and my mother were still married. He always obliged without hesitation. I loved that song. I also loved “Pickin' Time.”. Interesting that I would be so fond of those two songs as a child, those were very specific songs to his childhood, one being about the famous flood in 1937 that flooded my fathers childhood home, the other about his life on a cotton farm and the labors of picking cotton in relationship to whether or not he could afford a new pair of shoes, if the cotton yield was good.

I never felt like I liked his music as a fan, it was always just Dad singing. I've been to thousands of his shows and I never tired of hearing the show. I felt his show was part of my make up, it was in my blood in a sense, as it was his.

2. Do you have a favorite song or album that you can share with us? Why is it a favorite?

I have a lot of favorites, but I would say the ones I mentioned above are the most special to me, as I have always found his childhood to be really captivating, and I have always known how deeply connected he was to his experiences in Dyess, Arkansas, growing up poor, working on the cotton farm.

3. Do you remember the first time you heard the song “Miss Tara” and your reaction to it?

I don't really distinctly remember hearing “Miss Tara” for the first time, but I remember I was very touched and proud that he wrote the song for me. Years later I realized that he had just changed the words to an old song titled “Turn Around” that has been recorded by the Kingston Trio and many others. I'm still proud he personalized it for me for his cover of the song.

4. Is there any common misconception about your father or his career that you would like to address or clear up?

I tried to show Dad's fans the side that I loved so dearly by publishing a personal book he had written for me, that I later titled Recollections by J.R. Cash, so people could see how much more he was than the musician everyone knows. He was so rich in who he was, he was so very funny, so fun loving. He was adventurous, kind, he loved the outdoors, loved to fish, loved to hunt for arrowheads in old creek beds, loved good food, being alone, being with family, singing, writing, being playful. He was a scholar, a poet, a humanitarian, he loved to read, he studied and knew the Bible from front to back, cared deeply about his parents and family, loved going to his home on the island of Jamaica, the list goes on. The story that gets told over and over was his destruction of his first marriage, his problem with prescription pills, his redemption and marriage to June. But life was SO much more for my Father. I loved being around him. He was an entertainer without even trying. He made me laugh a lot; he was also very comforting to be around.

5. What is a memorable quote or piece of advice that your father shared with you?

A lot of my favorite things my father shared with me are what he wrote to me in my book Recollections by J.R. Cash. There's a couple of random limericks, a good piece of advice (don't keep the chocolate by your bed) and lots of good stories about his childhood.

6. What was it like singing “Silent Night” with your father during one of his Christmas TV Specials? Have you ever sang or recorded with your father during a different occasion?

I remember that day very well. I was quite nervous doing that show, which is pretty apparent in the video, along with the bad 80s perm! It was a little bit of an awkward time for me, and it's too bad that it's the only one of me singing with him, because there were so many times I toured with him that weren't documented, that I wish were, but people just didn't take those huge video cameras to concerts back in the 80s, and that's all people had back then!

I toured with my father many times, he was always asking his “girls” to go on the road with him, and we spent a lot of time on the road with him. At any given time, there were one, two, three, or all seven of us on stage with him. Sometimes I would just sing back up with some of my sisters or Helen and Anita (June's sisters), but when I got to be in my teen years and young adult, I sang a couple of solos. It was great fun, and a fantastic experience to travel with Dad and have the stage to myself for a bit, too! Singing is not anything I ever wanted to pursue, but it was a great experience to put myself out there like that, and lots of fun sharing the stage with Dad. Touring with him also made me really appreciate how grueling the road could be. I would go on two week tours with him, and he would do two shows a night, and be in a different state every night. I don't know how he kept up that lifestyle, it was exhausting. But I do know he loved it, and was restless when he didn't tour enough. But, as he got older, he got a bit weary from it.

7. Is there any special memory that you would be willing to share about growing up with your mother, Vivian?

My mother was great. She was vibrant, lively, fun to be with, always incredibly beautifully dressed and put together, and loved socializing. She had an explosive and infectious laugh. She was the president of the garden club, an active member of her church, loved to bowl (she was on leagues for years), and everyone always wanted to be around her. Our house was where our friends and boyfriends would come visit, then those same friends and ex-boyfriends would continue to visit my mother long after we'd broken up with those boyfriends or lost touch with our friends. I was very close to her and miss her dearly.

8. If memory serves me correctly, while living in California there were many pets, including a dog, bird, and even a monkey. What do you recall about living in California?

For one of my fathers birthdays, two of the guests that came to celebrate his birthday brought animals. One brought a parrot, and one brought a monkey! Of course he kept them both and named them Homer (the monkey) and Jethro (the parrot). This was a couple of years before I was born, but we still had the monkey when I was a baby, I just don't have memories of it. The parrot lived many years, and went to live with my grandparents in Tennessee after my parents divorced. We also had a bull named Troubles. Dad loved exotic animals and had many different beasts roaming together on his property until the day he died. It was like going into the garden of Eden. There were llama, an ostrich, an emu, Texas long horned steer, beautiful deer from all over the world, wild boar, goats, peacocks, a fishing pond, and his cabin, which was one of his peaceful places to get away from it all. It was really something to see all of these animals together, and be in this tiny cabin surrounded by them roaming the land.

I had a good childhood despite the fact that my parents' marriage was dissolving from the time I was born in 1961 until they divorced in 1967. In some ways the divorce was better, my mother was not as worried about him not showing up after a tour, he started to get help for his drug dependency, and we got to spend more time with him after he moved to Tennessee, as we spent our summers with him.

9. Sometimes in your recently published Recollections by J.R. Cash your father draws and doodles, including a funny caricature of himself. Did he ever draw pictures for you or others as gifts, like he wrote poems at various times?

I do have a couple of special drawings he did from when he was a child. An invention, a silly drawing of a “crazy mixed up kid” with all of his body parts in the wrong place. I also have some drawings in a letter he wrote to me when I was little. He didn't do a lot of drawing, but he doodled or drew a funny picture from time to time. When he had a pen in his hand, he would usually be writing a song.

10. I was surprised by your father’s lack of a voting record, considering how many presidents he met. Do you remember him talking about meeting presidents?

I don't remember Dad talking about meeting any of the presidents, although I was with him one time when we sang for Jimmy Carter when he was campaigning for a second term. Dad was not interested in politics that I knew of. When he watched television, it was usually CNN, The Weather Channel, or Cartoon Network. He stayed informed, but I don't think he was terribly impressed or captivated with the whole political scene. I have to agree with him there.
11. In your book, your father states that his favorite subject in school was literature. What were some of his favorite books? What are some of your favorite books?
There are too many favorites (his and mine) to name.

12. You make some beautiful jewelry for the Johnny Cash Museum. Can you talk about your jewelry making, when you started, and how you decided to use your father’s music as a theme?

When my step mother June died, in May of 2003, I was looking through a couple of her jewelry boxes. I found a broken strand of pearls and decided to make a pair of earrings for each of the women in the family. I realized at that point that it was a very therapeutic thing for me, to focus on making jewelry. Three months later, my father died, and I immersed myself in jewelry making. At that point, it became a bit of therapy for me in this time of great grief. I've been making jewelry ever since, and my studio is filled!

13. It seems like you started taking a more public role in the legacy of your father in recent years, with the book and the jewelry. Did anything motivate you to take a more active role at this time? Are there any plans for any future publications about your father and family?

Choosing to publish the book and making jewelry for the Johnny Cash Museum are things that keep me close to Dad and bring me joy, knowing his fans are enjoying these things I've brought to them. I decided to publish the book after visiting his boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas, which was restored last year. Dad always held his childhood home very close to his heart, visiting and walking the land there many times over the years. Several years after his death, a project came to fruition by the Arkansas State University to completely restore the home, which was about to fall to the ground from neglect. The house was restored and furnished, with guidance from my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Tom and is almost identical to the way it looked when they were growing up there. The house was just a two bedroom small simple home with no running water, shared by nine of them! I was so captivated with this story the house told, and was so moved, that it was at this time that I decided to publish the book my father filled out for me, as there were so many things he'd written about his childhood. It just seemed like the right time. I launched the book at the grand opening of his boyhood home's restoration (which is open to the public). I think Dad would have been very pleased. It made me feel really good about sharing this story, and I'm so proud of the work that was done to the house. He would have loved it so much. As far as future publications, nothing is ever out of the question!