Johnny Cash

They called him "The Man in Black."

In 1997, Johnny Cash recorded his second album with Producer Rick Rubin. It was called Unchained, and it contained covers of Tom Petty, Soundgarden and Beck to name a few. Country radio stations around the country decided that they wouldn't play the music, thinking that Cash was a sell-out. Later that year, Cash won the Grammy for Best Country Album and the next day, he took out a full-page ad in Billboard Magazine with this picture, dedicated to the stations that wouldn't play him.

That, my friends, is Johnny Cash.

Reasons he should be in the Hall of Fame:

1. "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" has to be some of the coolest lyrics ever written.
2. He was the youngest person ever inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
3. He is one of the few acts that are in both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
4. He has 130 hits on the Billboard Country Singles Charts. (He had at least two a year for 38 consecutive years.)
5. He has 48 Singles on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Charts. (More than Michael Jackson!)
   
6. In 1969, he was selling an average of 250,00 albums per month. (More than the Beatles at the time.)
   
   

Reasons he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame:

1. Bono idolizes him.