Country Boy: The Roots of Johnny Cash by Colin Woodward has won the J. G. Ragsale Book Award, given annually by the Arkansas Historical Association for best book-length historical study (nonfiction) of any aspect of Arkansas history. The award is given in honor of J. G. Ragsdale, a 1919 graduate of the University of Arkansas. Ragsdale was a founding member of the Arkansas Historical Association and chaired the board of trustees at the University of Arkansas. The award will be presented on April 14 at the annual conference of the Arkansas Historical Association at Arkadelphia.
Past winners of the Ragsdale Award from the University of Arkansas Press are The Ku Klux Klan in 1920s Arkansas by Kenneth Barnes, Arkansas Travelers by Andrew Milson, Dardanelle and the Bottoms by Diane Gleason, Anti-Catholicism in Arkansas by Kenneth Barnes, Arkansas/Arkansaw by Brooks Blevins, Ruled by Race by Grif Stockley, A Stranger and a Sojourner by Billy Higgins, Promises Kept by Sidney McMath, and The Rumble of a Distant Drum by Morris Arnold.
About Country Boy
Because Johnny Cash cut his classic singles at Sun Records in Memphis and reigned for years as country royalty from his Nashville-area mansion, people tend to associate the Man in Black with Tennessee. But some of Cash’s best songs—including classics like “Pickin’ Time,” “Big River,” and “Five Feet High and Rising”—sprang from his youth in the sweltering cotton fields of northeastern Arkansas.
In Country Boy, Colin Woodward combines biography, history, and music criticism to illustrate how Cash’s experiences in Arkansas shaped his life and work. The grip of the Great Depression on Arkansas’s small farmers, the comforts and tragedies of family, and a bedrock of faith all lent his music the power and authenticity that so appealed to millions. Though Cash left Arkansas as an eighteen-year-old, he often returned to his home state, where he played some of his most memorable and personal concerts. Drawing upon the country legend’s songs and writings, as well as the accounts of family, fellow musicians, and chroniclers, Woodward reveals how the profound sincerity and empathy so central to Cash’s music depended on his maintaining a deep connection to his native Arkansas—a place that never left his soul.
Colin Woodward is an archivist who holds a PhD in history from Louisiana State University. He is the author of Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil War and the host of the American Rambler history and pop-culture podcast.