Ring Of Fire, as performed by Joaquin Phoenix

It is strange that an actor performing the role of a musician gives his own version of the songs. It is even stranger that he/she makes it so good. I can only think of what Robert Altman did with his actors in Nashville (1975). Phoenix not impersonates Johnny Cash, he actually creates something new about the Man in Black. He does not try to imitate his style, that would have been simply pathetic. That is, of course, talking about only the performance of this great, great track. The production and the sound is the work of T Bone Burnett. Instead of using the mariachi arrangement that appears in the original, a powerful guitar sounds, together with the drums and bass, making the experience quite peculiar. June Carter defined Cash's style as a marching train, this arrangement proves that statement right. A rolling train that is burning, burning, burning...