Top Ten 1963 Songs: Ring of Fire (#5)

Tweet

As I mentioned yesterday, we have hit the final two country songs in the countdown of 60-year-old songs. And neither of them sound all that “country.” Yesterday’s song had French horn and oboe. Today’s song? Mariachi trumpets. Ah, country music was something else back then. Sing along with today’s 1963 song. #5: Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash You’ve probably heard the story about how Johnny Cash had a dream that he was singing this song accompanied by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. It wasn’t them. Wasn’t Danny Davis, either, although Davis’ friend, arranger, and “partner in crime” behind the concept of the Nashville Brass, Bill McElhiney, did play trumpet on the recording. There are as many stories about this song as there are people telling it. Merle Kilgore, co-writer and Hank Jr.’s manager (the man who basically saved Hank Jr.’s life when Williams fell off Ajax Mountain in 1975), says he wrote it all by himself and gave June Carter co-writing credit as a birthday present. June said she wrote it about her love for Cash, who was still married to Vivian at the time (and hardly walking the line like the song claimed: Rose Maddox’s biography states that Cash pursued her for a date, and she turned him down because she knew he was still married). And Vivian Cash, Johnny’s first wife, said Cash wrote it about the, ahem, “female anatomy.” We’ll never know. What we do know is that Anita Carter, June’s sister, recorded it first. Then Cash made his mariachi trumpet dream come true and created one of the biggest hits and most enduring songs of his career. Whatever the truth about the song’s origin is, the fact that it’s a classic remains clear. Ring of Fire Written by Merle Kilgore and June Carter Recorded by Johnny Cash From Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash, 1963 Bound by wild desire: