Synopses & Reviews
Johnny Cash is 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. Since his debut in 1955, he has come to embody country music as well as the spirit of defiance and rebellion that drives rock, and has garnered an immense audience along the way, selling more than fifty million albums and winning ten Grammy awards. He is universally acknowledged as one of the musical giants of the 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.
Review
"[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."Entertainment Weekly
Review
"It's high time for a comprehensive anthology of essays and interviews about [Johnny Cash]. Ring of Fire is a good one."Austin Chronicle
Review
"A fascinating read."Seattle Times Post-Intelligencer
Synopsis
Johnny Cash is a living icon, one of the defining country musicians of the century and patriarch of a clan that rules as country royalty. He has also been a hard-living firebrand whose air of danger and rebellion made him godfather of the bad boys of today's rock and rap. He has garnered him an immense audience across generations, selling more than fifty million albums and winning ten Grammy awards. Ring of Fire is the first book to explore Cash's life and work through essays by some of the best music journalists -- Ralph Gleason, George Vecsey, Richard Goldstein, Alanna Nash, Nick Tosches, Jon Pareles, and Ben Ratliff. Whether dispatched in the heat of Cash's meteoric rise to fame in the '60s or looking back from the vantage point of his recent musical resurgence and phenomenal new albums, these writings reveal the complex soul of an American legend.
Synopsis
A collection of classic writings on the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, by a stellar list of music writers, including Ralph Gleason, Robert Johnson, Nick Tosches, Alanna Nash, Jon Pareles, and Ben Ratliff
About the Author
Michael Streissguth is the author of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, editor of Ring of Fire, and an associate professor of English at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.