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About This Author
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Blogocentric Formulations #830227 added October 6, 2014 at 7:12pm
Restrictions: None
The Fault in Our Rings of Fire
** Image ID #2010042 Unavailable **
SONG: "Ring of Fire"
ARTIST: Johnny Cash
STATUS: Deceased (complications from diabetes, 9/12/2003)
ALBUM: [single] (1963)
In keeping with my list of hometown musicians, I can't very well mention Rick James' stint in Folsom State Prison without mentioning Mr. Folsom Prison Blues himself:
This is my favorite song of Johnny Cash's, no question about it. And if you're a fan of a more punk-rock version, even though they're not eligible for this contest since they're still performing, Social Distortion's cover of this song is one of my favorite songs of theirs too:
Born in Arkansas, Johnny Cash was one of seven children. That number decreased to six when his older brother Jack was pulled into a whirling head saw and nearly sliced in half, dying a week later and instilling Cash with horrible guilt over the incident. He learned to play the guitar and started writing songs at age twelve, and joined the Air Force when he was of age. He served as a radio operator, and was actually one of the first operators to hear of and report news of the death of Joseph Stalin.
Although Cash's personal life is perhaps most famously defined by his relationship with June Carter, he was married once before that, to Vivian Liberto for more than fifteen years during which they had four daughters. He was admitted to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980, making him the youngest inductee to date at the age of 48. He spent much of the 80s touring as part of The Highwaymen, a supergroup consisting of Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. When June Carter Cash died in May of 2003, she implored Cash to keep working. He would write sixty new songs in the last four months of his life before succumbing to complications from diabetes in September of 2003. Over the course of his career, Cash racked up - among other achievements - 3 AMA awards, 9 CMA awards, and 19 Grammy Awards.
There is some debate about what the song "Ring of Fire" refers to. While it is claimed that Cash wrote it to describe the experience of falling in love with June Carter, his first wife Vivian claimed that it was a crude song about a certain female body part and it could have been about June or herself. She accused Cash of putting June Cartner's name on the song as a writer because June needed the money. The song was originally recorded by June's sister Anita Carter, and Cash reportedly told her that if she didn't hit with the song in a few months, he was going to do his own version and add in Mexican horns (which you hear at the beginning of the song). Her version didn't hit... but his sure did!
PROMPT: The saddest book I've ever read is...
It might be because this is the most recent "sad book" I've read, but the one that just wrenches my heartstrings is:
| ASIN: 014242417X |
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Amazon's Price: $ 7.00
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Reading this book the first time was sad enough. But even tougher than that, trying reading it out loud to your wife and trying not to choke up at the end. For my money, this is one of the best books of the last ten years, full stop. It's a rare book that can have you laughing out loud one minute and feeling like your guts are unraveling the next. Most of the time, when I finish a book, I anxiously and excitedly think about what I'm going to read next. When I finished this book, I just sat there, absorbing what I had read, contemplating what it meant and how I felt. Books don't often make me than reflective, but this was definitely one of them.
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