Description Johnny Cash was bigger than life, surrounded by myths and legends, a notoriously hard-drinking, hard-drugging man who sings searing songs of death, loss, God, and work. Starting with his debut in 1955, he came to embody country music as well as the spirit of defiance and rebellion that drives rock, and garnered an immense audience along the way, selling more than fifty million albums and winning ten Grammy awards. He was universally acknowledged as one of the musical giants of the 20th century. In Ring of Fire, some of our best music writers consider Cash decade by decade in a collection of thirty-two classic articles and essays. They follow him from his birth in 1932 to his meteoric rise to fame in the late '60s and early '70s, through his two-decade slump and his musical resurgence in the 1990s, through the phenomenal albums he made in the face of his illness. Ring of Fire takes the Reader format and transforms it into the best kind of biography: complex, insightful, and multifaceted.
Michael Streissguth is the author of Eddy Arnold: Pioneer of the Nashville Sound and Like a Moth to a Flame: The Jim Reeves Story. He regularly contributes to the Journal of Country Music, Country Music Magazine, and other publications. He is an assistant professor in the English Department of Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York.
"[Cash's] humility and restless nature dominate every tale, proving that after forty-seven years in the spotlight, the Man in Black remains one of music's most fascinating and elusive figures." "A fascinating read." "Michael Streissguth amasses the whole story--cottonfield toil, iconic fame, narcotic nightmare, senior-citizen comeback--through a well-paced best-of selection." "It's high time for a comprehensive anthology of essays and interviews about [Johnny Cash]. Ring of Fire is a good one." "Thoughtfully written and full of anecdotes. Johnny Cash has given his fans--and writers --a wealth of good material over the years." |
