Reading Sheet Music

I heard this Johnny Cash song for the first time late-evening last night. It's a nice, easy song with some heartfelt lyrics.

I believe this is a live recording from San Quentin and JC gives a little introduction about how he came to know the song -- "There's a young man here at San Quentin tonight that wrote a song..."

What followed flabbergasted me; "He sent me the sheet music on it and I don't know anybody that reads music...I liked the lyrics so much I started singing my own tune to it..."

Taking JC's comments at face value, neither he nor members of his band read music. I know there's plenty of stories out there about musicians and their lack of formal training, little music theory knowledge, etc. But for me, this admission was eye opening. I would have expected someone in the band or someone associated with it to have music reading skills...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv8pI8-ALwc

wow,that's a great story. I just shows how much music is playing and feel, the expression of emotions.

I remember The Ventures saying that they didn't really know how to play their instruments when they started the band.

This is great, thanks for sharing.

Thats why I like the old blues stuff so much. Most of them only know some basic chords and some scales but they use it with so much feel and they sing awesome stories.