We got married in a fever....hotter than a pepper sprout...

[Botafogo]

She's gone to Jackson for good, June Carter Cash has left the building from comlications of heart surgery

. I'm usually a Soul, R&B, Blues, Reggae, Afro Pop, Samba kind of guy but June had more soul than almost any other white singer save Annie Lennox and expressed it in Hard Core Country no less. And she damn near tamed the Man in Black, no mean feat. The Carter Family should have a postage stamp tribute at the very least and maybe an endowment for a professorship in roots Anglo-musicality at the Smithsonian Institution.

Everyone sing along now:

Undertaker, Undertaker, Undertaker, please drive slo-o-ow. 'Cause that body you're a totin', Lord knows I hate to see her go.....
Will the Circle Be Unbroken, bye and bye Lord ...bye and bye. There's a better world awaiting in the sky, Lord in the sky...


from the heart of a card carrying anarchist Pagan who respects and reveres other people's faith when it is real.

Roberto

[Bucko]

She was a definite foundation pin in country women pioneering. A singer, songwriter, musician, actress and author, June Carter Cash performed with her husband, Johnny Cash, on record and on stage. She wrote one of Johnny's most famous songs -- Ring of Fire. From all that I've read, she was a good woman who stood by her man through thick and thin. She will be missed.

[Innkeeper]

Amen.

[winoweenie]

My deepest regrets and I even have a CD of hers. (A card carring modern jazz buff to the 597th degree)WW

[hotwine]

She was a jewel, alright. But now my 77-year-old neighbor who needs a heart valve replacement is waving the newspaper article announcing her death due to complications from that surgery, yelling "See? That surgery ain't safe!" No, it isn't, but neither is walking across the street.

[wondersofwine]

As a fan of both June and Johnny Cash, I second the sentiments of others. (By the by--or is that bye--if you have a chance to see the movie Songcatcher--perhaps on video or DVD--do it! Great Appalachian music connecting songs directly to English, Scottish, Irish forebears.)

[ShortWiner]

I've loved some of her songs without knowing they were hers. Seem to recall that "May the Circle Be Unbroken" is the most-covered song in history, or something like that. Could be making it up, but I don't think so.

[Thomas]

What you all said!

[winedope1]

ditto, ditto!!! WD

[Botafogo]

I will never forget seeing The Man in Black, The Tennesee Three and June and her family at the Minnesota State Fair in the early sixties. The opening act was Conway Twitty and the Twitty Birds who had obviously had a few snorts before getting on stage and Conway introduced the first song like this:

"Oh, weeeeeeeewieeeeeee, this one is for all of you corn fed virgins out there. It's called 'It only hurts a little while'!"

The powers that be hooked him off stage before he could get to the first chorus and Carl Perkins and the T3 started up with the intro to "Ring of Fire", June walked on stage and ad libbed about how Conway was going to have to learn a special dance to avoid the ring of fire he was headed for....

Roberto

[stevebody]

As a Southerner born and raised, it just breaks my freakin' heart...

Yeah, June had that particular brand of soul that comes from growing up the hard way and coming to appreciate the blessings you receive. Taming the Man in Black? Piece of cake for a Southern woman with a backbone and a sense of who she is. The South, as any Southern boy knows, is a matriarchy and, as I once read in a Greensboro paper, "In our house, Dad makes the big decisions, like whether we recognize Red China and what we think about the deficit, and Mom handles the little stuff, like raising us and putting food on the table."

My grandmother and June Carter would have been fast friends, both primary examples of what a fully-realized human being really is about.

[zenda2]

Thank you June for all you did. Not the least of which was keeping Johnny alive for the past 35 years.