Johnny Cash had periods when he was extremely cool and periods when he was almost forgotten. In 1955 he was at the cutting edge of the new Memphis sound emanating from Sun Records. In the late 1960s he mounted a comeback through his live prison recordings and had a top-rated network TV show. But from the early 1970s he’d fallen out of fashion.

May 1988 was definitely not a cool period. He’d not long been dropped by Columbia, his record label since 1958, and hadn’t yet been rescued by the producer Rick Rubin. He was in artistic limbo.

I had a magazine commission to interview him in Brighton, where he was playing as part of a European tour. To be honest, the magazine wasn’t particularly enthusiastic, as there was neither an imminent album nor relevant anniversary. We met at the Brighton Centre on the afternoon of May 11. As befits his often garrulous reputation, it was a policy of his not to do interviews after concerts. Johnny was wearing a white shirt with a pleated front which was open at the neck. He spoke slowly, happy to face any question but familiar with most of them.

He didn’t seem like a man down on his luck. He had just finished recording duets with the country legends Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Hank Williams Jr. Two days before he’d been at Paul McCartney's studio working on a song they’d written together. “It sounds terrific,” Cash assured me.

His son, John Carter Cash, then 17, was into heavy metal and Johnny was dutifully accompanying him to concerts by Twisted Sister, Metallica, Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne. The idea of the Man in Black getting down with head-bangers was an incongruous image to me; Cash, however, seemed unfazed. “It feels good,” he said. “I like the way it feels in your liver. The vibrations!” He’d first seen people “going nuts” over music when he toured with Elvis in 1955 and he hadn’t expected heavy metal to be any different. “And it wasn’t. Except that it’s a little louder and they have better lighting systems.”

The only time he admitted to being unprepared for a question was when I asked whether he would have been such a powerful performer if he had never strayed from his Christian roots. He paused for a moment of reflection.

“Yeah. If I’d kept my head clear all these years I think I would have accomplished more. But I guess I'm right where I'm supposed to be in my life right now so I'm happy with it. I don’t have any regrets and I don’t carry any guilt trips around.”

The answer I most enjoyed came when I asked him what image of home he reflected on when he was away from America. He described his country farm, Bon Aqua, 75 minutes away from Nashville. Behind the farm there was a spring. “I like to get up there and drink from that spring,” he said. “That’s Paradise on Earth to me, that little place with dogwood and sycamore trees.”

During the concert I stood at the side of the stage as he played his greatest hits. His profile — long gambler's jacket, high brushed- back hair, guitar slung over his shoulder — was already one of the most iconic in popular music.

After the show he invited me to return to London on the tour bus. I sat next to his wife June while he sat alone across the aisle and read a copy of my latest book that I'd given to him. Hungry for Heaven was a study of the religious influences on rock music. As he was a religious man, I thought he’d appreciate it.

Three days later I spoke to Johnny on the phone. He’d just completed the book. “You told me things I didn’t know about people I’ve known all my life,” he said. I was flattered.

The real value was only to become apparent 15 years later, though, when a publisher approached him about writing a book on his life. He committed to giving me 20 hours of interviews in October 2003. Unfortunately he died on September 12 and the book went ahead with the co-operation of his friends and family instead.

So I never saw Johnny Cash again after our meeting in May 1988, even though I now probably know things about him that he didn't even know himself. The magazine story was written but never published. A few weeks later he sent me The Man in White, his novel about St Paul. Inside he had written: “To Steve. Keep looking to the Light, and the shadows are always behind. Johnny Cash." The day that he died I was in my study researching for the book. My son rushed through to tell me. I felt as though I’d been emptied. He’d survived death so many times that I had assumed that he’d postponed it indefinitely.

But June Cash had died that May after suffering complications from heart surgery. And while I knew that Johnny was a born fighter, who sometimes fought himself, but mostly fought on the behalf of others, I knew that the death of his closest companion had devastated him.

In the end, it was only death that could beat him. But then, as Johnny saw it, death wasn’t the end.

JOHNNY CASH: WALKING THE ACTING LINE

DOOR-TO-DOOR MANIAC (1961)
Plays up his outlaw image as part of a bank-robbing gang that terrorises a small town

NIGHT RIDER (1962)
Starred as Johnny Laredo in this western for German television

A GUNFIGHT (1971)
Acclaimed for his performance with Kirk Douglas as ageing gunfighters who decide to stage a final shootout — and sell tickets for it

COLUMBO: SWAN SONG (1974)
Doesn't get away with murder thanks to the deductive powers of Peter Falk’s shabby detective

THADDEUS ROSE AND EDDIE (1978)
Joined his wife June Carter for this TV movie as a Texas good old boy trying to get by in life

THE PRIDE OF JESSE HALLAM (1981)
Also wrote and performed all the music for this telly film in which he starred as an illiterate miner forced to move to the big city to help his ailing daughter

MURDER IN COWETA COUNTY (1983)
Played a sheriff trying to snare villainous Andy Griffith

THE BARON AND THE KID (1984)
Starred in a film inspired by his hit record as a pool shark who teams up with his long-lost son

NORTH AND SOUTH (1985)
Pre-Civil War mini series with Cash as John Brown

THE LAST DAYS OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES (1986)
June Carter Cash played the mother of both Kris Kristofferson and her husband! (Willie Nelson turns up in a cameo).

STAGECOACH (1986)
Cash teamed up with fellow outlaws Nelson, Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings for a TV remake of the classic John Wayne western

DAVY CROCKETT: RAINBOW IN THE THUNDER (1988)
Not surprisingly, he played an ageing version of the backwoods hero

Steve Turner is available to discuss Johnny Cash online. Email any questions to him here

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