The songs Johnny Cash recorded in Spanish
Officially, Johnny Cash is usually considered a country music artist, but his incredible songwriting and broad appeal reaches far beyond the southern states of the USA. With an illustrious career spanning five decades, ‘The Man in Black’ enjoyed global success with his deep bass-baritone voice and songs usually detailing themes of heartbreak and sorrow. Country and folk music is firmly rooted in language, which means many artists of that calibre are limited in achieving worldwide acclaim.
With Cash, for instance, his heavy focus on country lyricism might have meant that he only enjoyed a fanbase within the Anglicised world. In an effort to combat this, Cash set about recording his classic tracks in other languages, notably Spanish and German. While re-recording all tracks from his nearly 70 studio albums would be a near-impossible feat, a select few Cash classics received the Spanish treatment.
The most well-known example of Cash’s flirts with the Spanish language comes with a re-recorded version of his 1963 track ‘Ring of Fire’. Originally written by the country star’s second wife, June Carter Cash, alongside Merle Kilgore, the song forms a definite highlight of Cash’s discography. Spending seven weeks on the country charts, ‘Ring of Fire’ is hailed among the greatest country tracks of all time. Although it was not initially released as a single, the track received new life following covers by the likes of The Animals, Sandy Kelly, and Alan Jackson.
Keen not to exclude the Spanish-speaking world from the brilliance of his track, Cash overdubbed the original English vocals with Spanish in a rare, often overlooked recording. Often referred to as ‘Anillo de Fuego’, the Español incarnation has been included on various releases throughout the years, most notably the CBS-released album Johnny Cash Canta en Español and a 2019 picture disc from Spanish label Sleazy Records.
Hearing Cash’s distinctive tones adopt the romantic tones of the Spanish language is certainly a unique experience. Of course, there are many originally English-language tracks that have been rerecorded into Spanish, given how widespread the language is across the world, but few of these efforts were attempted by the original artists themselves.
Aside from ‘Anillo de Fuego’, Cash further embraced Latin culture with his Spanish re-record of the lesser-known track ‘The Matador’. The song itself is a largely forgotten effort from the 1968 album Old Golden Throat, which is already imbued with the kind of romanticism that is indefinitely linked to Spanish culture and tradition. The alternate version, ‘El Matador’, follows much the same style as ‘Anillo de Fuego’, with Cash’s Arkansas-Spanish accent becoming increasingly endearing as the track progresses.
Unfortunately, Cash did not attempt to redub many of his other tracks in Spanish, though given the tirelessness of the artist, it is likely he simply never had the time. Nevertheless, Cash’s Spanish era remains one of the most interesting points within his long and illustrious career, reaffirming his commitment to bringing country music to the world at large.
