Ring of fire

The late, great Johnny Cash's longtime lakeside home in Tennessee burned to the ground Tuesday. The 13,800-square-foot house -- where Johnny and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived from the late 1960s until their deaths in 2003 -- was a showcase where he wrote many of his best songs and entertained U.S. presidents, music royalty and visiting fans. It was also where director Mark Romanek filmed most of Johnny's most famous music video -- for my money, maybe the greatest and definitely the most affecting music video ever made -- available for viewing here.

Pssst! Want to buy a stuffed buffalo? Or a gate from the OK Corral?

A collection of more than 10,000 Western and Native American artifacts -- including, no kidding, the gates from the OK Corral -- will go on the auction block in Dallas next fall. The items were amassed over a period of years (and purchased with city funds) by Harrisburg, Penn. mayor Stephen R. Reed, who had hoped to display them in a Wild West museum that would re-create Tombstone, Ariz., circa 1881. But those dreams were shattered when Harrisburg had to face up to severe fiscal crisis.

Home improvement takes a Westward direction

Members of an Alabama family have brought a distinctly Western touch to decorating their living room.

Blog tip of the day: Inuit & Native Art Bulletin

Check this out for timely coverage of Eskimo Inuit and Native America art.

Multiculturalism in Music City USA

As Nashville gains an increasingly more international flavor, some folks are sounding sour notes. But, hey, if Johnny Cash could add mariachi-style horns to "Ring of Fire," maybe it won't be too hard for different cultures to establish harmony.

Beezie Madden unbridled!

In this in-depth interview at the Dublin Horse Show, equestrian Beezie Madden talks about international competition, riding on a team, the different styles of her horses Authentic and Judgment, methods for keeping a stallion fresh, her plans for the future -- and loads of other stuff that horse lovers and aspiring riders will want to hear!

Gunfights in the DVD corral

Looks like Hollywood studios are continuing to dig deep in the vaults for Westerns worth releasing in restored DVD editions. Coming May 8 to a video store near you: Volumes 1 and 2 of Classic Western Round-Up, a couple of four-title collections from Universal.

Volume 1 includes King Vidor's The Texas Rangers (1936), with Fred MacMurray, Jack Oakie and -- no kidding! -- Gabby Hayes; Jacques Tourneur's Canyon Passage (1946) , with Dana Andrews, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward and Ward Bond (as a character named, believe it or not, Honey Bragg); Ray Enright's Kansas Raiders (1950), with Audie Murphy as Jesse James, Tony Curtis as Kit Dalton, James Best as Cole Younger and Brian Donlevy as William Qunatrill; and Raoul Walsh's The Lawless Breed (1953), with Rock Hudson (as John Wesley Hardin) co-starring with John McIntire, Hugh O'Brian, Dennis Weaver and Lee Van Cleef.

But wait, there's more: Volume 2 includes James P. Hogan's The Texans (1938), with Randolph Scott, Walter Brennan, Robert Cummings and Joan Bennett; John Farrow's California (1946), with Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck and Anthony Quinn; Budd Boetticher's The Cimarron Kid (1952), with Audie Murphy, James Best, Leif Erickson and Hugh O'Brian; and another Budd Boetticher classic, The Man from the Alamo (1953), with Glenn Ford, Julie Adams, Chill Wills -- and, hey, Hugh O'Brian again.

Now if only the folks at Columbia would finally get around to releasing DVDs of the great Westerns that Boetticher filmed with Randolph Scott between 1956 and '60!