Hello Friend,
I’d like to tell you about our show.
The music and life of Johnny Cash has been very special to me and I know to a lot of other folks as well. There has recently been a lot of posthumous Johnny Cash releases and a renewed interest in Johnny Cashs legacy by the public. I personally think this is a good thing because I dont think you can ever have enough of Johnnys music and spirit. The only thing that is missing from these is the up close and personal LIVE experience of Johnny Cashs music. This is why we came up with this show.
It just so happens, I am related to the late, great Johnny Cash. Granted, it is a far away relation but I am kin just the same. My Great-Great-Great Grandmother on my fathers side was Francis Fannie Cash. Our shared ancestry goes all the way back to Scotland. Shared branches but different veins. Unfortunately, I found this out after the Man in Black had passed away.
I first heard Johnny Cash like a lot of you, through my family. My Grandfather listened to Johnny religiously. By the time I was starting to play myself, I was learning Johnny Cash songs I had heard a million times. I have been a devoted, lifelong fan of Johnnys music, honesty, and spirituality. Cash music was some of the main inspiration to make playing and singing my life.
I have been a professional musician for the past 20 years. I have toured the world and shared stages with many talented and special people: Bo Diddley, Eric Idle (Monty Python), Magic Slim, Dick Dale, etc... Hell, I have even played at Carnegie Hall in New York City with Art Garfunkel.
I am glad I earned some quality miles, because developing this show has been one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences of my career. Care has been given to many details in order to give the audience a fulfilling experience across the span of Johnnys career. Music, arrangements, clothes, and most importantly the overall spirit of Johnny and Junes shows have been recreated. Not to merely imitate, but to celebrate the music and heart of Johnny Cash in a communal way with the audience.
Synchronicity plays with all of our lives at some point and in my life this was to include Johnny Cash. After playing every Honky Tonk, Theater, Barroom, and Rodeo for 25 years, Johnny Cash changed the path of my life again, just as much as he did the first time I heard him. I want to bring this wonderful experience LIVE to you one more time in the He Wears Black Tribute to the Music of Johnny Cash.
The echoes of his tunes will reverberate forever - A great American is gone. The Man in Black www.toptown.com/hp/66/maninblack.htm will sing no more songs. But the echoes of his tunes will reverberate forever. Here's to Johnny Cash www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/. In the 1960s, I was climbing the monkey bars and a song came on the radio from across the playground. For some reason, I thought of the men fighting in Vietnam when I first heard "Ring of Fire" www.lyricsondemand.com/. Both my parents were from Arkansas. Johnny Cash grew up an hour down the road from my father's home town. Both had stories from the pines of southern Arkansas. Both had many stories about trains (see www.sciencefiction-thriller.co.uk/). Sun Records in Memphis knew talent. In the 1950s, they recorded songs by Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Roy Orbison, and many others www.wguides.com/city/62/150_68229.cfm. Only a few of those greats live on. In the early seventies, my dad found humor in the tune, "One Piece at a Time" www.toptown.com/hp/66/onepiece.htm a song about an employee at an auto assembly plant. I shared his amusement. I gained a whole new respect for Johnny Cash when my cousin played the "Live at San Quentin Prison" album. www.mysale.ca/sales/13899.html. Johnny Cash's compassion for the poor, the sick, the persecuted, has a message for everyone. Years later, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash sang "Girl of the North Country," www.bobdylan.com/songs/girlnorth.html and my appreciation for both men increased. Thirty years later, my son and I listened to "Rusty Cage" www.letssingit.com/, and another generation of fans of Johnny Cash was born. Many were hit hard the day Elvis Presley died. Before that it was Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. Or Janis, Jimi, and Morrison. "
