We’re celebrating country legend Johnny Cash with a vintage performance of his hit “Ring of Fire.”
September 12 marks the 13th anniversary of the Man in Black’s death. To pay tribute, we’re taking a look back at some of Johnny Cash’s greatest hits. In a 1968 concert at the Ryman Auditorium, featured on the Grand Ole Opry’s Vintage Classics DVD, he gives an unforgettable performance of “Ring of Fire.” Penned by June Carter and Merle Kilgore when she was falling hard for Johnny, the classic would prove to be his biggest hit.
Cash’s first Opry performance was on July 7, 1956, the same night he met the future June Carter Cash. He performed regularly on the famous stage until his constant battle with drugs and alcohol caused him to be banned from the prominent establishment in 1965 after he smashed the stage lights with a microphone stand. It wasn’t until after Cash was clean that he was asked to play the Opry again.
You can catch more Johnny Cash memorabilia at the newly opened Storytellers Museum and Hideaway Farm in Bon Aqua, Tennessee, about 40 miles southwest of Nashville. Housed in a former local general store Cash owned and used as a music venue, the museum features guitars, personal possessions, and the black Mercedes-Benz he drove toward the end of his life. A mile up the road, you can tour the 107-acre ranch the country legend regarded as his sanctuary. There, he wrote in his 1997 autobiography, “I can cook my own food, read my own books, tend my own garden, wander my own land. I can think, write, compose, study, rest and reflect in peace.”
