Posthumously the love for Cash continues.

And like his career, the love spans generations. James Adams, an Earshot employee, says someone comes in the store at least once a day looking for something Johnny Cash.

"He's always remained cool," he says.

That's what seems to bring people to him.

Johnny Cash, despite age, death or genre, will always be cool.

The Outlaw
While the release of the biopic "Walk the Line," starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, may introduce Cash to a new set of fans, Cash's devil-may-care attitude has already attracted a fan base that spans age and musical tastes.

University of North Carolina music professor Jocelyn Neal says Cash was bringing an original sound and a ballsy image to music from the very beginning, which attracted those outside the country realm.

"The sound of his music was more than just the total twang guitar of country," says Martin Anderson, music director at WNCW-88.7/FM.

"He crossed the line, he walked the line, but he crossed the line into rockabilly"

Cash is known as an outlaw as much as a country artist. And when an artist is known as much for his affinity for black and someone who has no qualms about flipping off photographers or playing concerts in prisons, it's no wonder he attracts a wide range of fans.

"You kind of just see that he was painted that way as sort of an outlaw - the man in black - so I think that was where the foundation was for the Generation X falling in love with him, that he just wasn't just a guy that put out some hit songs," Anderson says. "He was someone that was exciting, and someone that people could look up to in much the same way that James Dean has an enduring legacy and Bob Dylan too."

The Cash Renaissance
In the mid-'90s, Johnny Cash made a move that rekindled his career with a new generation. He returned to the studio and hooked up with legendary producer Rick Rubin. Rubin, known for his work with Run DMC, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys and Jay-Z, produced a series of four albums with Cash, known as "The American Recordings." These recordings included remakes of popular songs, including "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails, which became a timely ballad preceding his death in September 2003 and that of his wife, June Carter Cash, four months earlier.

"To longtime Cash fans, I think they fell in love with the new Johnny Cash because it wasn't some sort of fabricated Johnny Cash," Anderson says. "It was like the real deal - even more than the stuff he was putting out in the '80s, when he was trying to just stay afloat."

Steve Labate, the assistant editor at the music magazine Paste, says his American Recordings brought sincerity to music, at a time when it was lacking.

"In the kind of culture we live in, everything is fast-paced, things are disposable," Labate says. "He's the antithesis of all that."

Neal says Cash's resurgence was because of more than his work with Rubin. She says there was a confluence of events, like the movement in country music known as alt.country, which caused people to gravitate to Cash's Americana sound.

"So that was a second sort of influence in the mid-90s along with the fact that he's making his records, you've got this alt.country thing coming to life around the same time," Neal says. "I think it has to do with pure life cycle generations when these older artists get to a point when they themselves are ready to do some reflective or retrospective music."

True Love or Band Wagon Love
When people latch on to an icon or an image, it's easy for the marketing world to latch on as well. Take the Che Guevera shirts donned by trendy hipsters. Were they worn by people for the cause or for the sake of following a trend?

Do people in Cash T-shirts know the man behind the black? And is it important that they do?

"I think a lot of what they're getting is a lot more than Johnny Cash flipping a bird in a poster," says Earshot manager Bryan Walker.

Like the image of honesty and genuineness Cash put across, fans also seem to have the same appreciation for Johnny Cash, the musician and the man.

"The renaissance is due mostly to a genuine love for the guy," Anderson says. "However I'm not sure that it would have happened if not for him being a man of stature, and you know recognized by the media, and the media kind of getting on board."

But whether fans love him for his music or his attitude, it's clear that Cash transcends genres to be more than a musician. His music represents the rock-and-roll attitude whether he's playing country, gospel or folk.

"He's an American artist," Walker says. "Like a truly American artist."

Ana Parra can be reached at 298-3766.