Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution)
I first got into the music of Johnny Cash in June or July of 1994 through a radio broadcast of a brief performance of his. On his own the “walking contradiction” performed “Drive On” from his American Recordings (American) that had come earlier in the year and made Cash into the Tony Bennett or Tom Jones of the moment. With sparse accompaniment Cash then performed two of his signature songs, “I Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire.” The latter was both sentimental and unsettling. The rage and desperation of the song wasn’t expressed as a present day reality but neither was it something shoved into the background and chalked up to an “experience” or a “mistake.” It was part of life, albeit a part of life that is better left in the past.
June Carter wrote the song with Merle Kilgore as a means of expressing the love Carter felt for Cash, a man she had just recently met. Personal issues and problems kept the two from getting together for a few years, but Cash recorded the song on March 25, 1963 and it went to be a no. 1 country hit and peak at no. 17 on the pop charts. (Date and chart positions courtesy of the booklet that comes with The Essential Johnny Cash (Columbia, 1992).) More than that it further solidified Cash as a legend who sang songs about the darker side of life.
A member of The Carter Family who first performed as child, Carter married Johnny Cash in 1968 and became known as June Carter Cash. She performed with her husband regularly in the years that followed. In 1999 she released a solo album, Press On (Risk), to warm reviews. She also played an important role in Robert Duvall's rightfully acclaimed 1997 film The Apostle.
