Marshall Grant, the bassist who played with Johnny Cash from 1954 until 1980 and co-founder of the Tennessee Two, died on Sunday at the age of 83. Grant passed away in Jonesboro, Arkansas while attending a Johnny Cash festival to raise funds to restore Cash's childhood home in the town of Dyess, Arkansas.
As well as playing acoustic and electric bass for Cash, he also served as road manager for the group. Grant and Luther Perkins were instrumental in devising classic Cash tunes and such as Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk The Line and Ring of Fire. Grant's unconventional strumming style on the bass came about from his unfamiliarity with the instrument when he moved to it from playing guitar, according to Grant himself.