Ring Of Fire - Chris Pozdol

"Ring of Fire" or "The Ring of Fire" is a country music song popularized by Johnny Cash and co-written by June Carter Cash (wife of Johnny Cash) and Merle Kilgore. The single appears on Cash's 1963 compilation album, Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. The song was originally recorded by June's sister, Anita Carter, on her Mercury Records album Folk Songs Old and New (1963) as "(Love's) Ring of Fire".
The song was recorded on March 25, 1963, and became the biggest hit of Johnny Cash's career, staying at number one on the charts for seven weeks.

Although "Ring of Fire" sounds somewhat ominous, the term refers to falling in love -- which is what June Carter was experiencing with Johnny Cash at the time. Some sources claim that June had seen the phrase, "Love is like a burning ring of fire," underlined in one of her uncle A. P. Carter's Elizabethan books of poetry. She worked with Kilgore on writing a song inspired by this phrase as she had seen her uncle do in the past. In the 2005 film Walk the Line, June is depicted as writing the song while agonizing over her feelings for Cash despite his drug addiction and alcoholism as she was driving home one evening. She had written: "There is no way to be in that kind of hell, no way to extinguish a flame that burns, burns, burns".
The song was originally recorded by June's sister, Anita Carter, on her Mercury Records album Folk Songs Old and New (1963) as "(Love's) Ring of Fire". Mercury released Anita's version as a single and it was a featured "pick hit" in Billboard magazine.
After hearing Anita's version, Cash claimed he had a dream where he heard the song accompanied by "Mexican horns". Cash allowed some time for Anita's song to catch on, stating:
" "I'll give you about five or six more months, and if you don't hit with it, I'm gonna record it the way I feel it." "
When the song failed to become a major hit for Anita, Cash recorded it his own way, adding the mariachi-style horns. This sound was later used in the song "It Ain't Me Babe", which was recorded around the same time. Mother Maybelle and the Carter sisters are prominently featured in the Cash recording singing harmony. Cash tinkered with a few of the original phrases in Anita Carter's version of the song:
Four years after the song was released, Carter and Cash were married, which Cash states helped to stop his alcohol and drug addictions. Cash's daughter Rosanne has stated, "The song is about the transformative power of love and that's what it has always meant to me and that's what it will always mean to the Cash children.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Ring Of Fire
• Chris Pozdol
• Johnny Cash
• June Carter(Cash)
• Merle Kilgore
• Country
• Country & Western

[MrLudaCris1]

Nice strong voice! Sounds a lot like Johnny Cash but a touch more mellow, Easy to listen to.