THE MAN IN BLACK: A TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH written and directed by Kurt Brown, with Shawn Barker. Presented by David Mirvish and LCQ Productions at the Panasonic Theatre (651 Yonge). To February 27. $25-$60. 416-872-1212. See Listings. Rating: NNN
As just a moderate Johnny Cash fan, I didn’t expect much from The Man In Black, Kurt Brown’s show about the versatile country artist with the resonant bass-baritone voice and signature all-black wardrobe.
Granted, it took a while for the two-and-a-half hour show to heat up, but soon I was slapping my thigh, clapping my hands and even hollering with the rest of the die-hard Cash fans at the Panasonic Theatre. Note: I never do these things, even at concerts.
Brown’s successful touring show isn’t some souped-up musical biography that takes us through cheesy episodes in an artist’s life as if they’re stations of the country music cross. There’s very little about Cash’s personal life or struggle with drugs and visits to prison. What we get instead is a really fantastic concert, fronted by a performer (Shawn Barker) who looks and sounds enough like the real thing (in, say, his late 30s) recreating songs from Cash’s near 50-year career, even those wild alt rock experiments he did late in life with producer Rick Rubin.
Recreating his subject’s onstage gestures (the raised guitar, the humble downward glance, the modest charm), Barker slips into character without overdoing it, delivering fine versions of hits like Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk The Line and the still eerily haunting Ballad Of Ira Hayes. You don’t need manufactured drama when it’s all there in a song like Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Morning Coming Down.
Barker has Cash’s between-song banter down pat – and he’s good at getting the crowd to join in – but what he lacks is that gravitas that the later Cash had, that weary-voiced feel of a sinner who sought and earned redemption through his music.
Still, Barker and the first-rate band (stand-out is bandleader and electric guitarist Mike Burns, whose solos on songs like Long Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man are note-perfect) are particularly strong with Cash’s uptempo songs. Just try to keep your feet still while hearing Get Rhythm and I’ve Been Everywhere, songs that have the momentum and propulsion of locomotives.
The show’s high point is a medley of gospel-infused songs that brings the house down and then raises it back up real high.
