Johnny Cash: The Man in Black.

I owned the cassette of this album around the period of its release in 1971, and listened to it quite often. My elementary school classmates were appropriately befuddled.

Hearing the title song just now, I'm surprised at having retained almost all the lyrics. It's too bad I didn't learn Spanish or German around the same time. A language might have stuck.

Johnny Cash's life was a work in progress, and filled with contradictions. One anecdote holds that at least in the beginning, his choice of black clothing was merely expedient; they were easier to keep clean on the road.

Later, black was a persona, although Cash does a fine job here in attaching principle to appearance.