History of Rock and Roll is Not What you Think

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2006)

This is a movie with lots of surprises coming from someone who assumes that Johnny Cash is just a country music and had no idea other than someone with an over-sized guitar and a bass voice.
The quality of the movie and the surprise of the beginnings of rock and roll totally surprised me and as a result I ended up watching this movie on the very first day I bought this video four times in a row. So this movie just moved me a lot, and this coming from a person whose favorite music is just only the Beatles! Johnny Cash is not just country, he is in a class unique, combining blues, gospel, Rock & Roll, depending on his music.
It is a movie about the early part of Johnny Cash's life as a humble cotton farmer, after joining the Air Force, married, settled down in Memphis, Tennessee to work as a unsuccessful door to door salesman trying to support his family.
It totally surprised me that Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins' music has its roots in about the same time during the early 1950s, in the same region, the Deep South, and were discovered by what I call the Father of Rock and Roll, Sam Philips of Sun Records.
It also revealed Sam is not only tactful and a visionary but can push people to perform his best and with tact and flexibility. Little did I realized that Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis all toured together! I wasn't even aware that both the lives of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash both got addicted with amphetamines while on this same tour and both suffered greatly, where Johnny Cash addiction was saved by June Carter, while Elvis Presley died without anyone's help.
You will learn that Johnny Cash's life was no easy matter either, his first wife can barely control him while it was June Carter personality was a different chemistry altogether, where the little lady through her own morals can achieve such control and charisma over Johnny Cash. There are lots of surprises in the movie, such as promoting his band through a prison and other interesting fact.
The movie did eventually revealed that in year 2003, both Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash died that same year, but it is also noteworthy to pay respects to Sam Phillips, who also died that same magical year of 2003 also. It is as if it was the end for legend world of rock and roll and country that year.
I highly recommend this movie more than just a mere biopic, while Joaquin Phoenix do resemble somewhat of Johnny Cash, it was Reese Witherspoon that the entire movie is centered. This is a sheer surprise for me as this movie represents the love of Johnny Cash's life for June Carter since his childhood right up decades later in what I believe to be one of the longest courtship uphill battle for June Carter, something so difficult to attain that success only is secondary to him. The fun thing about the movie is that success may be the only thing, but, in the words of Johnny Cash's father that he is just still "nothing" without a real family or a real love.
Therefore the history of Rock and Roll is not what thought to be just Beatles versus Elvis Presley. It is much more than this. It is a movie that had a lot of substance. It is of course non-fiction.