Late country music legend Johnny Cash, whose life is featured in a new documentary, was a "very strong Christian" whose faith in God saved him during his darkest times, including from drug addiction, his sister, Joanne Cash, told Newsmax on Friday.
"I've seen many documentaries in my life and they even made one on me, but this documentary about Johnny's life is an absolute truth," Joanne told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" about the documentary, "Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon."
"They found a reel-to-reel tape of Johnny telling his own life story, so the voice you hear of this story is Johnny's voice himself and it is the truth," she said. "There have been many documentaries, there have been many stories told over the decades about my brother Johnny Cash, but this one is from his own mouth."
She added that the resulting film is the "best documentary I have ever seen."
"I'm very thankful and proud to be part of this truth, and I encourage everybody, especially those that are in addiction or are thinking about going into an addiction to see this film first," she said. "It was truly his dream to be a singer."
The film, Joanne added, speaks out about her brother's "fall into drugs, his absolute redemption" and how he ends up with the evangelist Billy Graham.
Johnny Cash's turning point came in 1967, when he went into Nickajack Cave near Chattanooga, Tennessee, with the intention of committing suicide before a spiritual experience inside the cave brought him back out and stopped his drug abuse problems, said his sister.
"He crawled into that cave to die," Joanne said. "He thought his life was over; he thought his career was over. He wanted to die. He thought everything was lost. He thought everything was over."
But, he said "some sort of a light" spoke to him and said "what are you doing here? I will help you find the way not only out of this cave but the way of life," she said.
"God gives abundant life, not death, and Johnny had a whole lot more to do in this life," she added.
Johnny Cash died in 2003 at the age of 71.
Joanne added that her brother's upbringing in Christianity also helped to shape him and his career.
"When Johnny was 17 years old, we were still on the farm in Dyess, Arkansas, and I was 6 years old," she said. "I remember standing in the kitchen, and Johnny was standing outside the kitchen window. Young men's voices change when they go into puberty and that time of life and his voice all of a sudden was low. My mother said, 'What is that?' And I said that was Johnny."
Their mother called the future country star into the kitchen, and said, "'Son, was that you?' He said, 'Yes mama, I'm gonna be a singer.' "
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