Celebrating a Legend: Badass Johnny Cash Covers

Originally written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore, "Ring Of Fire" is one of Cash's best known songs, one of his calling cards. But there can be little in this world that is more badass than Ray Charles absolutely, totally, utterly losing himself in the music, performing the song as if he wrote it himself, and belting out an incredibly soulful, powerful cover. When Johnny Cash himself comes on to congratulate you, you know you're doing something right.

Nick Cave is one of a very few artists who have as deep and commanding a voice as Johnny Cash, and his cover of Cash's song, which was originally called "The Folk Singer," is a growling, angry masterpiece. Telling the story of a singer whose star is fading, Nick Cave is the very epitome of badass on this moody cover, which subtly alters some of the lyrics, but remains awesome.

"Badass" probably isn't the first word you come up with when describing Florence Welch, but it would fit. She's sweet, beautiful and otherworldly, but she has a voice so powerful that it's hard to believe is real, and the confidence to match it. She routinely subdues songs and crowds like they were nothing, just by flexing those vocal chords. Johnny Cash and Florence + The Machine have little in common, but that ability to cover a song and immediately, indelibly make their mark on it so it's their own is a shared talent. Cash did it to the original "Jackson," written by Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Leiber and remembered for his version alone, and Florence continued tradition by staking her claim on his ground. With Josh Homme as her June Carter, Florence created a "Jackson" that measures up to its Johnny Cash counterpart—an achievement that is badass in and of itself.

When it comes to covers, there is probably no one more fitting than Bob Dylan to cover Johnny Cash. For the most part, Dylan stays true to the original, but not without adding his signature twang to the cover, which remains comparable to the original. There really is nothing like when one great pay their respects to another, a refreshing reminder that musicians don't always have to be combative to be successful.

Debbie Harry's punk and new wave heroes Blondie are pretty close to the definition of badass, and their cover of one of Cash's most famous songs successfully navigatees the pitfalls associated with making a song one's own, without losing too much of the character and spirit of the original. Hearing those famous lyrics sung in a female voice is always surprise at first, but Debbie Harry nails it, with all the panache you'd expect from the Playboy bunny turned front-woman.

English singer Elvis Costello has, somewhat like Mr Cash himself, always been a musical chameleon of sorts, moving from sound to sound and reinventing himself with comparative ease. On this uptempo cover of "Cry, Cry, Cry," Costello and his backing band The Impostors add a bit of piano into the mix with jaunty, rollicking results.

The inimitable Frank Zappa's cover of "Ring of Fire" is weird, no doubt, and at times seems to stray close to farce, but overall, it's a pretty badass rendition, by Zappa, who performed the cover regularly during his 1988 tour. Not to everyone's taste, but weirdly wonderful nonetheless.

Norah Jones' husky, rich voice works surprisingly well covering Cash's "Ain't No Grave," which was released on a 2010 posthumous album of the same name. Cash's version of the song, which was originally recorded in 1941 by Bozie Sturdivant, is a spine-tingling death march, with the man in black's cracked, ageing voice sounding vulnerable, but defiant. It takes a lots of guts to cover Cash, and a lot of talent to do it well, and Jones' country-tinged cover works as a softer version of Cash's deathly song.

"Girl From The North Country" is a song that's typically attributed to Johnny Cash, though it's in fact a Bob Dylan song that was eventually recorded as a duet between the two. This cover by Monsters of Folk, which is what M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Jim James are known as collectively, therefore, is pretty fitting. The three keep close to the original, yielding a beautiful rendition of Dylan and Cash's touching, nostalgic song love song by keeping it heartbreakingly somber.

Singer and actor Dean Martin's cover may not match up to the original in terms of its deep-voiced professions of loyalty and devotion, but there's something that just works with his softly, softly approach. Keeping pretty much the same instrumentation as Cash's version, and just adding the occasional backing vocal harmonies, Martin recorded a cover that could be sung as a lullaby. Send your kids to sleep and give them a good taste in music. Perfect.