Before “country music outlaw” became just another outfit for would-be badasses to try on, Johnny Cash made it a job description.
The way the Man in Black told the story of his mishap in the song “Starkville City Jail,” from his 1969 live album Johnny Cash at San Quentin, he was innocently picking dandelions and daisies when the sheriff pulled up and carted him to jail, where he spent the rest of the night and paid a $36 fine.
On Friday, the Mississippi Country Music Trail commemorated Cash’s night in the Oktibbeha County Jail — which is incidentally still a dry county, although he could legally have a drink today inside city limits — with a historical marker in Starkville.
While the “Starkville City Jail” incident was soon overshadowed by his October 1965 bust in El Paso, Texas for bringing more than 1,000 speed and sedative pills across the border from Mexico, its legend grew in the years that followed.
Johnny and June Carter Cash did play an impromptu set at the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity house after a concert at Mississippi State University, but it apparently happened a year earlier, says John Arledge, who booked Cash to play at the Lee Hall Auditorium on campus the night of May 6, 1964.
Mike Streiff, one of Arledge’s fraternity brothers, remembers the house staff cooked fried chicken for the band, and Johnny and June sang a rendition of the gospel song “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” while sitting on the kitchen floor.
The following year, the university invited him back for an encore performance, this time at a larger space on campus.
Cash didn’t appreciate the sheriff interrupting his flower pickin’, which he made clear by repeatedly shouting and kicking his cell door so hard he broke a toe.
Cash’s anger didn’t last much longer than a hangover, though.