Born June 23, 1929, in Maces Spring, Virginia, Valerie June Carter, later June Carter Cash, was born into country music. Growing up in the Carter Family, one of the earliest and most prominent country groups, by the late 1920s, her mother Maybelle Carter was performing some of the earliest commercial country music songs ”’I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes,” and “Single Girl, Married Girl.”
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When she was 10, the Carters moved to Texas and June was already performing on radio shows, stage, and records by the 1930s before the more extended Carter Family group, featuring cousins and other relatives, disbanded in 1943. June, her younger sister Anita, and the eldest Carter daughter Helen went on to perform as Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, later renamed The Carter Family. They became regulars at the Grand Ole Opry by 1950, where June would meet two of her three future husbands: Carl Smith and Johnny Cash.
By the mid-’50s, June was managed by Colonel Tom Parker and toured with Elvis Presley, and in the early 1960s, she became part of Cash’s touring show. They released their first collaborative album, Carryin’ On with Johnny Cash and June Carter, in 1967, featuring their No. 1 pop hit ”Jackson,” and married a year later.
In between performing with Johnny during the 1970s, June also took on a handful of small acting roles, including an appearance on Little House on the Prairie with her husband, and also starred in Robert Duvall’s 1997 film The Apostle.
Nearly 25 years after the release of her solo debut, Appalachian Pride, in 1975, June released her second and third albums, Press On and It’s All in the Family, in 1999, along with several more posthumous releases in the early 2000s.
In 2003, June Carter Cash died on May 15 at 73, nearly four months to the day her husband Johnny died (Sept. 12, 2003) at the age of 71.
In honor of June Carter Cash’s birthday, here’s a look at three songs she wrote for other artists.
1. “If You Were Losing Him to Me,” Jean Shepard (1961)
Written by June Carter and Helen Carter
Jean Shepard’s fourth album, Heartaches and Tears, featured a song written by June and Anita Carter’s eldest sister Helen, who penned “I Lost You After All.” The album also features another song co-written by June and Helen, the mid-tempo crooner “If You Were Losing Him to Me.”
Shortly after her 1953 No. 1 hit, “A Dear John Letter,” Shepard became a member of the Grand Ole Opry and recorded 24 albums between 1956 and 1981. Shepard died on Sept. 25, 2016, at the age of 82.
You say I’m bein’ selfish cause I won’t set him free
But once I’ve given him to you what is left for me
You say that he don’t love me but now that may be true
But if you were losing him to me I wonder what you’d do
If you were losing everything that made your world go round
Would you hang on till he’d forgot the other love he’d found
Or would you really let him go the way you want me to
If you were losing him to me I wonder what you’d do
2. “Love’s Ring of Fire,” Anita Carter (1962)
Written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore
Johnny Cash’s 1963 hit “Ring of Fire” was originally recorded as “Love’s Ring of Fire” by Anita Carter, on her 1963 album Folk Songs Old and New.
After hearing the march-like song, Johnny Cash claimed he had a dream where he heard the song with mariachi horns and vowed to record it himself if it didn’t become a hit for younger Carter. When Johnny released his version a year later, it went to No. 1 on the country chart, where it remained for seven weeks, making it one of the biggest hits of his career.
Anita was also a songwriter and co-wrote Johnny Cash’s hit “Rosanna’s Going Wild” with sisters June and Helen.
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire
The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild
3. “The Matador,” Johnny Cash (1963)
Written by June Carter and Johnny Cash
Originally released by Johnny Cash in 1963 with b-side “Still in Town,” his No. 2 country hit, “The Matador,” was later featured on his 28th album, Old Golden Throat, in 1968.
Along with “Ring of Fire,” and the couple’s collaborative albums together, June’s contribution to her husband’s catalog extended to a number of other songs, including the aforementioned “Rosanna’s Going Wild,” along with “My Old Faded Rose,” “The Road to Kaintuck,” “Time and Time Again,” “Wings of Angels,” and more.
The crowd is waiting for the bullfight
Matador
My final fight the place is packed once more
Anita won’t throw me a rose this fight
The one she wears is not for me tonight
She’s watching now with her new love I know
Walk proud and slow
Be strong and sure and give the crowd their show
They want blood you know
You’re still their idol as you were before
Kill just one more
Remind Anita, you’re the greatest Matador
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
