CoronaVinyl Day 60 (Tennessee): Johnny Cash's Greatest Hits Volume 1 by Johnny Cash

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is Tennessee, and since I have to go with Johnny Cash.  He was born and raised in northeast Arkansas, not far from Memphis, and then spent most of his formative adult and musical years in Tennessee, so there you go. 

The Man in Black -- not to be confused with the Man in the Black Pajamas, although I'd like to think that Johnny Cash wore only black pajamas -- is obviously one of the most iconic and recognizable American musicians of all-time, so I won't go into any great detail about his life or music.  I will, however, regale you with this interesting tidbit I just learned:  While Cash was serving in the U.S. Army in the early '50s, he was stationed in West Germany, where he was a Morse code operator tasked with intercepting Soviet transmissions.  On March 3, 1953, he received a telegraph stating that Joseph Stalin had died, which made Cash the first westerner to be aware of Stalin's death.

The only Johnny Cash album I have on vinyl is his Greatest Hits Volume 1, which was released in 1967 and has since gone double platinum in the U.S.  Spotify doesn't have the exact album, but some good human made a playlist with this album and the 1971 Greatest Hits Volume 2, so that's what's embedded below.  Volume 1 ends with "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" for those who care.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "I Walk The Line"
One of Cash's signature songs is 1956's "I Walk The Line" -- and it inspired the title of Cash's 2005 biopic Walk The Line.  The song not only topped the Billboard Country chart, but it was also a crossover hit, reaching #17 on the Billboard Hot 100.  In addition, it was ranked #30 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time list and #1 on Rolling Stone's list of the Greatest Country Songs of All-Time.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "The Ballad of Ira Hayes"
Since I assume everyone knows and loves "Ring of Fire," I decided to go with "The Ballad of Ira Hayes."  It was originally written and performed by folk singer Peter La Farge, and Cash covered the song for his 1964 album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, which focused on the plight and oppression of Native Americans.  "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" is about a real-life member of the Pima tribe named Ira Hayes, who was one of the six U.S. Marines who famously raised the American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, and his not-so-great life after he returned from war.