Their romance was hardly a fairytale at first. Johnny first met June, born into the famed Carter Family country clan, at the Grand Ole Opry in 1956, when her marriage to country star Carl Smith was annulled. (Her daughter, Carlene Carter, became a recording star with Carl in the late ’80s.)
They began recording and performing together and fell for each other in the early 1960s, when June was married to second husband Rip Nix (their daughter Rosey died of carbon monoxide poisoning on October 24, 2003), and Johnny was with first wife Vivian. .
Their forbidden love produced Johnny’s biggest hit, Ring of firewritten by June and her songwriting partner Merle Kilgore, who said: “One morning in 1963, June said, ‘I’m falling more and more in love with Johnny, and I don’t know what to do about it.’ She had a letter from a friend who was having an affair and wrote that love was like a burning ring of fire.
Tommy Cash added: “They fell in love when they started working together. Johnny was still married to Vivian at the time and June expressed her honest emotions in the song.”