Johnny Cashs brother, fellow country singer Tommy, dies aged 84

Tommy Cash, a country music singer and brother of the late Johnny Cash, died at age 84, 21 years after his elder sibling passed away.

The Johnny Cash Museum confirmed his death on Saturday, revealing he passed away the prior evening.

Bill Miller, the museums founder and CEO, said he knew Tommy for over 50 years and called him a very, very dear friend.

This great man will be deeply missed by his friends and many loyal fans around the world, Miller wrote in an Instagram post.

Cash is survived by his wife, Marcy Benefield-Cash, whom he married in 2001.

Tommy Cash died on September 12 after spending decades touring as a solo country artist and alongside his brother, Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash, left, and Tommy Cash, right, are pictured together in 1971 during a taping of an episode of the Johnny Cash Show

Benefield-Cash said her husband had Parkinsons disease in an Instagram post from July 2023. She said it was the reason he retired from performing. 

No cause of death was available.

Following in the footsteps of his older brother, Tommy embarked on his own successful career as a recording artist, releasing his debut album Heres Tommy Cash in 1967.

His look and gravelly voice resembled that of Johnny, who he honored with the song My Brother Johnny Cash in 2008, five years after he died.  

Tommys first top 10 hit on Billboards Hot Country Songs came in 1970 with Six White Horses, where he paid tribute to John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

That same year, two more of his songs charted, including Rise and Shine and One Song Away.

Although his fame never reached the level of Johnny, who was eight years his senior, the brothers often collaborated and performed together.

Cash was born on April 5, 1940 in Dyess, Arkansas, to parents Ray and Carrie Cash. He was the youngest of seven

I probably would have never learned to play the guitar if it wasnt for him, Tommy said about his brother in a biography found in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Tommy was born on April 5, 1940 in Dyess, Arkansas, to parents Ray and Carrie Cash. He was the youngest of seven.

The family later relocated to Tennessee, which is where Tommy spent his adolescent years. 

H e played in a band in high school, according to The New York Times, and enlisted in the military after he graduated.

In 1958, while he was serving in Germany, he was the disc jockey for a country music show called Stickbuddy Jamboree carried on Armed Services Radio in Frankfurt.

By 1963, Tommy was back in the US and living in Nashville. Two years later, he recorded his first single, I Guess Ill Live.

Tommys death came the day after the 21st anniversary of Johnnys death on September 12, 2003. Johnny was 71 and died from diabetes complications.

Cash is pictured in 2022 with his wife, Marcy Benefield-Cash, whom he married in 2001

Tommy poses with Johnny Cashs star at the Nashville Music City Walk of Fame in October 2015

Tommy, who continued to tour into his 70s, also worked as a real estate agent and helped sell the home of Johnny and his wife, June Carter Cash, after their deaths. 

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the brothers had a strained relationship  throughout the 1960s because of Johnnys drug addiction. They had a number of violent clashes over the years.

But they seemed to have made peace with one another by 1987, when Johnny introduced his brother on stage at Austin City Limits for a performance of That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine.

Weve been down the road together, Tommy and I, Johnny said. Had a lot the same problems, shared a lot of the same joys, a lot of the same sorrows as brothers do. Brothers dont get along sometimes, but brothers make up, because brothers love each other.