Top 25 Johnny Cash Songs: Luther Played the Boogie (#25)

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It's time to pay tribute to one of the greatest performers in music history, and to do it with a top 25. That's right. Twenty five songs. Hey, you can top ten this and even top 20 that, but when you get to Johnny Cash status even 25 is minimizing it. #25: Luther Played the Boogie "Now didn't Luther play the boogie strange?" Johnny Cash couldn't have possibly come along at a better time. The lines between the burgeoning "rock and roll" and country or "hillbilly" (as Cash said in this song -- "we were just a plain old hillbilly band with a plain old country sound") were rather fuzzy. They called it "rockabilly," and Johnny Cash walked comfortably in both worlds. He was the first person ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in 1992) and the Country Music Hall of Fame (in 1980) as a performer. (Other Country Hall of Famers [Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills] predated his induction into the Rock Hall, but as "early influences" on rock, not as a performer.) This song pays tribute to Cash's longtime guitar player, Luther Perkins, who was instrumental in creating Cash's signature sound. Luther was part of Cash's band from his earliest days until his death in August 1968, when he fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand and caused a fire. Perkins and bassist Marshall Grant were Cash's "Tennessee Two," and that was all the backing Cash needed to set the music world -- country and rock -- on its ear. Luther Played the Boogie Written by Johnny Cash From Greatest!, 1959 Luther playing the boogie: