Hello, I’m (downloading) Johnny Cash1
The lucky recipient of a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card (and a whole lot of press) is 71-year-old Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia —a retired real estate agent, onetime Navy radar operator, and grandfather of nine who just wanted Johnny Cash’s 1958 single “Guess Things Happen That Way” for his new Nano, a birthday gift from his children. And he bought it on a PC: “I do not own a Mac, no,” he chuckles. “I knew somebody was going to ask me that question.”
Sulcer has spent the last day fielding calls from, among others, Apple head Steve Jobs (“I thought it was my son, he’s always a joker. I kept saying, ‘Come on, Kevin, I know it’s you!”) and Cash’s daughter Rosanne (“she had her husband, who is her guitarist, play the song to me over the phone. That was real nice.”).
He has been a devoted Johnny Cash fan for most of his life, he says: “I went to Georgia Tech on a football scholarship, broke just about every bone in my body. All those boys on the team, we just loved country music… My whole life, I had never understood why people go see movies twice, but I’ve seen [Cash biopic] Walk the Line four times. My kids finally bought me the DVD. And I was pretty sure I had all of his music, but I was just checking iTunes, listening to those little 20 or 30 second clips, and I found this one. It has some good pickin’ in it!”
[Click to continue reading EW talks to the Georgia grandfather who bought the 10 billionth song on itunes: ‘I’ve never won anything!’ | EW.com]
A sweet story, really. The song itself is pretty typical for a Sun Records Johnny Cash song; also there’s a version floating around the intertubes that is a duet with Bob Dylan, circa Nashville Skyline.
from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jobs congratulated him, thanked him for using Apple products and chatted a bit.
“He was real nice,” Sulcer said. “I told him I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed iTunes and the iPod. I really enjoy country music.
“He asked me if I played the guitar, and I said, ‘Oh my goodness. That is my lifelong frustration.’ “
Sulcer has been trying to learn the picking style of Luther Perkins, Cash’s guitarist, but he has not had much luck.
“[Jobs] said he had been messing around a little with [the guitar], too,” Sulcer said.
…
Later Thursday, after his doctor appointment, Sulcer was expecting calls from near and far. Apple public relations people have been calling him to ask whether he would consent to an interview with Rolling Stone, the rock magazine, and other publications.
“I said, ‘Rolling Stone is going to be so disappointed with this old man.’ “
He did get a call he found a little more special. “Rosanne Cash also called this morning to thank me for listening to Johnny Cash,” Sulcer said. She told Sulcer her father would have turned 78 on Friday. Then she had one more surprise for him: Her husband, musician John Leventhal, played the song he bought over the phone for him.
[Click to continue reading Woodstock man wins $10,000 iTunes contest | ajc.com]
Too funny
Footnotes:- famous opening line of his live At Folsom Prison LP, prior to singing Folsom Prison Blues – shot a man in Reno just to see him die, wild cheers from the inmates, you remember [↩]