By the time Johnny Cash released his 20th (and perhaps most controversial) album in October 1964, the country music icon had already gone head-to-head with national radio stations that banned the album’s only single, the non-fictional folk song “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”. Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine to address his critics directly, something the singer-songwriter said “cost like hell.”
Videos by American Songwriter
That Cash went to such great lengths to defend his concept album isn’t surprising. His collection of songs describing the genocide and continued oppression of Indigenous communities across the U.S. was partially inspired by what Cash believed to be Cherokee ancestry in his bloodline. Although he would later discover he wasn’t of Native American descent, he continued to advocate for these communities, even as racist ideology tried to suppress Cash’s work.
No Cash album speaks to the plight of the Indigenous as much as Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian. But as this country has seen all too often, confronting racism and bigotry can often lead to backlash and suppression. Cash’s 20th album was no different. The only thing that was different was that by 1964, Cash was a bona fide music icon. He had all the tools at his disposal to make a stand: an international platform, lots of cultural pull, and plenty of money.
In the summer of 1964, he made sure to use all three.
Johnny Cash Called Radio Stations “Gutless” for Overlooking Controversial Album
Most of the songs on Johnny Cash’s 1964 album, Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, depict the bloody, destructive, and painful history of the United States’ treatment of Native Americans. The record’s only single, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”, is no exception. The song, which Cash released in June 1964, tells the tragic story of Hayes, a Pima Native American who enlisted in the U.S. Marines and was one of the soldiers who raised the flag on Iwo Jima during WWII.
Cash decided to address the increasing number of stations that refused to play his album in a full-page advertisement in Billboard. “D.J.s—station managers—owners, etc, where are your guts?” He wrote. “I think that you do have ‘guts’…that you believe in something deep down. Classify me, categorize me—STIFLE me, but it won’t work.”
“You’re right,” Cash continued. “Teenage girls and Beatle record buyers don’t want to hear this sad story of Ira Hayes. But who cries more easily, and who always go to sad movies to cry??? Teenage girls. This ad (go ahead and call it that) costs like hell. Would you, or those pulling the strings for you, go to the mike with a new approach? That is, listen again to the record? I won’t ask you to cram it down their throats. But as an American who is almost a half-breed Cherokee-Mohawk (and who knows what else?), I had to fight back when I realized that so many stations are afraid of ‘Ira Hayes’. Just one question: WHY???”
No one ever answered his question, but no one had to. One month after publishing his ad in Billboard, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” was No. 3 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
Photo by Columbia Records/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.