Tennessee Three
The Tennessee Three were the backing band for country musician Johnny Cash for more than 40 years and together with him they created the famous Johnny Cash sound .
Tennessee Two
Cash first played with the Tennessee Two , guitarist Luther Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant in various clubs in Memphis (Tennessee) until they got a recording deal with Sam Phillips , the owner and producer of Sun Records , in 1955 . Perkins and Grant, like Cash, were not professional musicians until then, but instead worked full-time as car salesmen and mechanics.
Since Cash's band didn't have a drummer at the time, Perkins had a piece of paper tucked behind the strings of the rhythm guitar; this percussive purr became the hallmark of the famous boom-chick-a-boom . The name is an onomatopoeic description for the fast, pounding sound similar to that of a moving train.
Tennessee Three
In 1960 the drummer WS Holland joined the band, which became the Tennessee Three . Guitarist Luther Perkins worked with Cash and the Tennessee Three until he died in a house fire in 1968 at the age of 40; he was replaced by Bob Wootton . In 1971 the band recorded an instrumental album dedicated to Luther Perkins: The Tennessee Three: The Sound Behind Johnny Cash . Bassist Marshall Grant left the band in 1980. Since then there have been changing line-ups, with Wootton and Holland as permanent musicians. 1997 Cash ceased touring; he died in 2003.
The Tennessee Three continued to perform, Wootton had taken over the vocal part. The band was supported by Wootton's wife Vicky and his daughter Scarlett. In 2006 the band released the tribute album The Sound Must Go On . In 2012 another album was released with the title All Over Again without the retired W. S. Holland. The band has since been strengthened by Wootton's youngest daughter Montana. Bob Wootton died in April 2017.
Walk the line
In the 2005 film biography of Johnny Cash, Walk the Line , the band members were played by the following actors: