Ring of Fire

[xoxoxoBruce]

I was following Griff's link to a story about the olympics in the New York Times when This article caught my eye.

The cast of three men and three women sitting around a table in a spare studio on 45th Street were rehearsing for the March 12 Broadway opening of "Ring of Fire," the new show based on Johnny Cash's songs.

Despite Mr. Cash's basic harmonies ("I'm a seventh and ninth man myself, " he said, referring to his preference for more complicated chords), he soon found the poetry in country music's unadorned clarity. "These songs are incredibly sophisticated, some of them profound," he said over a rushed meal during a rehearsal break several weeks after the table reading. "The honesty in them just startled me."

"His writing kept going back to those really simple country images," Mr. Maltby said. "There is in that an American myth, and he lived it. It's almost archetypal, like Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan: a young man leaving home, going out in the world, getting lost, going astray, finding his way back through Jesus and the love of a good woman. It's not everybody's Johnny Cash; it might not be anybody's Johnny Cash, but it's an essence that emerges from looking at what he wrote."

I know I'd really enjoy this show.

[Elspode]

My appreciation for Johnny Cash just continues to grow as he receives postmortem accolade after accolade. Brilliant simplicity, profoundly honest imagery and just plain American Roots music goodness.