Meet Johnny Cash's six siblings - including famous musician brother who scored three top 10 hits

Johnny’s oldest sibling, Roy Cash, was born in Arkansas in 1921. He worked as an Automobile Sales Company dealer in Memphis, Tennessee. When Johnny was honourably discharged in 1954, he joined his brother Roy in Memphis and started selling appliances door-to-door. Roy introduced Johnny to two mechanics at his garage, Luther Monroe Perkins and Marshall Grant. With steel guitarist A. W. Kernodle, they became the Tennessee Three, Cash’s backing band, staying on when Kernodle left as the Tennessee Two. 

Roy Cash passed away in Memphis in 1993 at the age of 71. His son, Johnny's nephew, Roy Cash Jr. is a retired Navy Officer and songwriter whose most popular hit, ‘I Still Miss Someone’, has been covered by Stevie Nicks, Kris Kristofferson and his uncle Johnny. He married Claire Wandene Pickens in 1939 with whom he had four daughters and son Roy Cash Jr. 

Jack Cash is perhaps one of Johnny’s most well known siblings, and regularly credited as a large influence on the singer. The 14-year-old, who hoped to become a pastor, was particularly close to Johnny but was tragically injured on 12 May 1944 while working at the local school’s agriculture shop to raise money for the family. Jack was pulled into the blade of an industrial table saw and died of his injuries a week later. 

The loss of his brother at a young age greatly affected the singer. Jack’s gravestone is inscribed with the words, “Meet Me In Heaven” which Johnny later used as a title for one of his songs. 

Joanne Cash has, rather successfully, followed in her brother's footsteps. The singer has over 25 records to her name, released an autobiography My Fears Are Gone in 1978 and co-founded the Nashville Cowboy Church, housed at the Texas Troubadour Theatre. Music was a memorable part of her childhood in the Cash household during their stay in Dyess, Arkansas: “Air conditioning was having the front door and back door open and we’d lay on the living room floor listening to gospel and country music,” she told News Release Today. 

Johnny supported his sister Joanne in escaping what she calls a “bad marriage”, which followed her high school anxieties around “her hopes of being able to go to heaven and see Jack”. When she returned home and  got involved in music at church and with Jimmy Rogers Snow’s Grand Ole Gospel Time between 1972-1976, she remarried and formed her own music ministry. She recalled: “There was one short phrase from Johnny that’s always stuck with me [...]: ‘Baby, just keep on singing!’” Joanne is credited as an executive producer on 2022’s Johnny Cash: The Redemption of An American Icon. 

Johnny’s only older sister Margaret Louise Cash was born on 1 March 1924 in Kingsland, Arkansas. She married Jordan Joseph Garrett in 1946 and remained with him until her death. Four days after the USS Houston was sunk on what happened to be Margaret Louise’s 18th birthday, Jordan was held as a prisoner of war for over 3 years. During this time, he and other soldiers constructed wooden legs for Allied amputees and made trousers from a stolen tent. Margaret Louise died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 79 in Hendersonville, Tennessee and is buried in the Middle Tennessee State Veterans Cemetery in Nashville.

Johnny’s younger sister Reba was born on 28 January 1934 in Kingsland, Arkansas. She worked as the singer's personal assistant between 1960 and 1995. Rebecca Anne had three sons and one daughter, Kelly Leigh Hancock, who travelled with her mother and uncle and became a country singer herself. Kelly, like her mother, suffers with migraines and recalled her uncle saying that he found relief from chronic pain caused by a broken jaw by singing, saying the act "took him away and eased his pain", per the National Headache Society.

The baby of the family, Tommy Cash was born on 5 April 1940. Like his older siblings Johnny and Joanne, Tommy found his calling in the music industry. He released his debut album, ‘Here’s Tommy Cash’ in 1967 with a similar vocal tone to his brother. His first Billboard Top 10 in Hot Country Songs arrived in 1970 with ‘Six White Horses’, followed in the same year with tracks ‘Rise and Shine’ and ‘One Song Away’.

The brothers regularly performed together, and Johnny welcomed his brother on stage at Austin City Limits for a performance of ‘That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine’. Tommy married Marcy Benefield Cash in 2001 and lived in Hendersonville, Tennessee for many years. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease according to a July 2023 post made by his wife Marcy and died 13 September 2024, a day after his brother Johnny’s 21st anniversary. 

Johnny Cash was born J.R. Cash on 26 February 1932 in Kingsland, Arkansas to Carrie Cloveree and Ray Cash. He was the middle sibling of seven. On enlisting in the Air Force, he had to change his name due to a ban on the use of initials as a first name, opting for John R. Cash, later Johnny. With the rest of his siblings, Johnny contributed to the family’s struggling finances during The Great Depression, working in cotton fields from the age of 5. In the evenings, the family would sit on their front porch singing hymns. 

Johnny fell in love with his mother’s playing and the country songs he heard on his uncle’s radio. At just 12, he had started writing his own songs. He started working two years later, pursuing a music career on the side, performing wherever he could hold people’s attention. After high school, he enlisted in the air force and, on returning, sold appliances door-to-door until in 1954 he was signed to Sam Phillips’ Sun Records label, the name behind Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

While in basic training for the Air Force, Johnny Cash met 17 year-old Vivian Liberto at a Texas roller skating rink. They married three years later in 1954, a month after he had been discharged. The couple had four children together, daughters Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. She filed for divorce in 1966 and raised their four daughters. 

He met June Carter backstage at the Grand Ole Opry in 1956. They got engaged in Kentucky in 1968 and married the same year. Their only child, John Carter Cash, was born in 1970. The couple remained together until June’s death in May 2003 and Cash died just 4 months later following complications from diabetes at the age of 71. He is buried next to June Carter in Hendersonville Memory Gardens.

Not many country musicians have left such an extensive musical legacy upon their death. But Johnny Cash’s lyrics pulled on enough universal themes of grief, pain and heartache that he secured himself a place in music-lovers’ playlists to this day. He sold over 90 million records worldwide, received 11 Grammy Awards and his 1975 autobiography Man in Black sold 1.3 million copies.

His name sits in the Country Music Hall of Fame as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But Johnny remained true to his more humble origins, supporting mental health charities and performing for Native American causes, as well as leading campaigns for prison reform. TV didn’t kill the radio star in the case of Cash, instead The Johnny Cash Show had a regular slot on ABC from its debut in 1967, running until 1970, with guests including Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong and Neil Young.