In some ways, Cash and Carter is a family business that's been handed to me.
My parents' love for each other lasted throughout their whole life. They didn't give up... They accepted each other totally unconditionally.
My father was a humanitarian, but he didn't side one way or another with any certain right's groups. He just believed in people.
This is my home; I've made it my home for my whole life. I'm an old Nashville veteran.
When my father was, you know, a very big artist in the 1970s and then later up through the '80s. And then I began playing guitar with him in the road in the late '80s until he retired in 1997. So I traveled the world with them for years, you know, and all around the world and got to meet some great people.
He was just Dad. But it's hard to deny who he was when you're brought out on stage, and you're standing beside this great man singing at the end of a show, and the crowd loves him.
My father had a way of exposing himself, of showing weakness and still retaining his dignity.
Dad had a way of defining himself. He couldn't put his finger on whether it was rock 'n' roll or country.
Dad never really got over Jack's death and was deeply inspired by his brother throughout his life to delve deeper into his own faith.
Within the first six years of my life, if asked what Dad was to me I would have emphatically responded: 'Dad is fun!' This was my simple foundation for my enduring relationship with my father.
There's an image that my mother saved my father in 1968 and everything was a bed of roses after that. And that just wasn't true. There were as many struggles in the 1980s and the 1990s as there were in the 1960s.
My father claimed no political affiliation. He supported Al Gore because he knew him as a human being. He supported Lamar Alexander, who was the governor of Tennessee, who was a Republican. It was based on the individual. He didn't believe in politics. He based his support for someone on their heart and their integrity.
My mother's death was very painful as it occurred over a period of a week. Watching her die was the hardest thing my dad ever went through.
My father saw a separation between Johnny Cash the entertainer, his business, and the person. The good ole boy. He carried that with him. Or he tried to. Sometimes the lines got crossed.
The Carter family history means a lot to me.
My mother made wonderful cheesecake. She loved cheesecake. She ate it every day of her life.
God probably shook his head and said 'Oh, my goodness' many times in dealing with my father. But what God saw in my father was that he was a rock, a foundation in a lot of ways - someone people could relate to who could shine strong and was not afraid to reveal himself. I think he was a great role model to many people in that way.
I did a lot of struggling with my identity trying to figure out who the heck I was. I had to face my demons.
My father was a great outdoorsman. From when I was about six we would spend countless hours together in the woods or on a lake. He taught me how to skin a rabbit and pluck a wild turkey. He showed me there is much more to nature than we can ever understand.
My father had a great sense of humor. He wasn't only the Man in Black. He said it himself in the song 'Man in Black:' 'Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day.' He was a man of hope.
