Who were The Tennessee Three? The story of Johnny Cash’s devoted backing band

Faroutmagazine.co.uk profiles The Tennessee Three, the backing band that helped shape Johnny Cash's distinctive sound. The piece traces how Cash, raised in Arkansas and drawn to music through his mother and gospel radio, met the musicians who would become his lifelong collaborators after leaving the US Air Force in the mid-1950s, and explains why their contribution mattered to the development of country and rockabilly music.

The band's roots lie with Cash's brother Roy, who worked alongside mechanic Luther Perkins in Memphis; Perkins jammed with colleagues Marshall Grant and AW "Red" Kernodle before Cash joined them in 1954. After Kernodle's nervous exit from their 1955 Sun Records audition, Perkins and Grant carried on as The Tennessee Two, later joined by drummer WS "Fluke" Holland to complete the trio. Perkins' muted "boom-chicka-boom" guitar style, inspired by Merle Travis, became central to Cash's signature sound, though Perkins died in a house fire in 1968 at the age of 40.