Johnny Cash out of hospital

Johnny Cash: His second hospital stay this year

Country music legend Johnny Cash has left hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, after a two-week stay for treatment for bronchitis.

It was the fifth time Cash, 69, had been in hospital since 1998 because he suffers from autonomic neuropathy, which makes him vulnerable to pneumonia.

He had been at the Baptist Hospital for his most recent treatment since 7 October.

Autonomic neuropathy is a degenerative disease of the nervous system similar to Parkinson's disease.

Cash spent almost two weeks in hospital with pneumonia in February this year. He was treated for the illness during a two-week hospital stay in 1999.

In 1998, he went to hospital twice for the illness and said later he almost died.

Distinctive

Known as the Man in Black - due to his favoured colour of clothing - Cash is considered the inspiration for a generation of country music singers.

His hits include A Boy Named Sue and A Thing Called Love. He has sold more than 50 million records during a career spanning five decades. He has also won eight Grammy Awards.

Born into a poor family in Arkansas in 1932, Cash claims to have only ever had one singing lesson, in which he was given the advice: "Never change your voice."

He has since lent his distinctive bass tones to songs of coal miners, convicts and cowboys.

In a life shadowed by drug and alcohol problems, Cash has also spent time in prison and was once fined $85,000 (£58,000) for starting a forest fire.

He has not toured since 1997 but his last album, American III: Solitary Man was released at the end of last year.

He is the only person to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.