It’s hard to top Garth Brooks when it comes to the best country rock storyteller ever. He is a storyteller, a singer, and a performer. His concerts are so popular that ticket sales are overwhelmed by bots. In fact, he’s the best selling solo artist in U.S. history, with over 200 million sales. His songs are classics.
So which singer could possibly rank higher than Brooks as a country rock storyteller? There’s one singer who scored higher, at least on a new list posted by Grunge.com. And his name is Johnny Cash. Of course, it’s no knock on Brooks, really. It’s Johnny Cash. They’re both great, in their own ways; it’s how you measure it that matters.
Johnny Cash ‘Defied the Boundaries of the Musical Genre’
Grunge gave Cash the nod, with Brooks ranking second, because Cash “defied the boundaries of musical genre, taking his albums from country to rock and back again (with plenty of stops along the way). He also demonstrated his mastery of the storytelling song.”
That’s hard to argue with; after all Cash has such classic hits to his name as “Ring of Fire,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.” Not to mention “I Walk the Line” and “Man in Black.” Grunge notes that Cash wrote his own songs, including one that “retells his childhood experience of the Great Flood of 1937 when the Cash family lived in Dyess, Arkansas.” That song was called “Five Feet High and Rising.”
Brooks, of course, has “Friends in Low Places” and “The Dance.”
Johnny Cash Ranks Over Garth Brooks on a Few Other Lists
Johnny Cash has fared well on such ranking lists before. YouGov found that only Dolly Parton ranked higher on a list of the most popular country music artists. Almost nobody on that list had a negative view of Cash. Brooks placed 15th on that list.
Cash tied for 20th on Business Insider’s list of best-selling country artists, based on units sold. Brooks is first on that list.
Grunge listed three other artists on its list. In fifth place was Charlie Daniels. Kenny Rogers was fourth. Neil Young was third.
“You want spectacle? Then you want Garth Brooks, who took country rock to new heights in the ’90s with arena shows featuring pyrotechnics and dramatic wire work, among other stunts. But Brooks has the songwriting and performance chops to make his songs the gripping chart-toppers many became,” the site wrote of Brooks.
As for Cash, he died in 2003 at the age of 71, but he obviously left behind quite a musical legacy. “The name Johnny Cash means country music for millions of people around the world. If country music is the poetry of America’s common man, then surely Johnny Cash is its poet laureate,” the Kennedy Center wrote of Cash.
“Through words and music, for nearly half a century, he has expertly captured the moods, the thoughts, the struggle of the American working people–the farmers, the truckers, the factory workers. And he is the finest interpreter of his own works.”
The Singer Who Outranked Garth Brooks as Best Country Rock Storyteller Ever