It’s 1974 in Binghamton, New York, and Johnny Cash is consumed by the upheaval of the Watergate scandal and the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. Just two years earlier, Cash had met Nixon.

Johnny Cash’s version of “A Boy Named Sue” is one of the first songs I can ever remember hearing. I first heard it in my now-late dad’s old blue stretched-out crappy car from 1970-something. I don’t ...