Stars Gather to Pay Tribute to Johnny Cash

With those four small words, an evening of exceptional performances from the likes of Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson and even Wyclef Jean was rendered all but moot. The artists gathered at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom for Turner Network Television's An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash were in peak form, but they were all upstaged the moment the honorary guest turned to face the crowd, announced himself and struck up "Folsom Prison Blues."

It was the first performance in nineteen months for the sixty-seven-year-old Cash, who suffers from the degenerative neurological disorder Shy-Drager syndrome. His face was weary, but his spirit was visibly stirred by the evening's show of support. And though his voice was not quite up to its legendary meaty rumble, it still commanded more than enough authority to justify the highly emotional all-star tribute.

"You look at him and go, 'That's Johnny Cash, man!'" gushed Chris Isaak backstage after performing "I Guess Things Just Happen That Way" and "Get Rhythm" early in the show. "People say he's been sick and stuff, but sick Johnny Cash is still bigger and more powerful than the rest of us."

As one of the only two performers (the other being Elvis Presley) inducted into both the Rock & Roll and Country Music Halls of Fame, Cash does cast a large shadow over popular music, and that presence was reflected in the evening's lineup. Although it leaned heavily toward country (fellow Highwaymen Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Brooks & Dunn, Trisha Yearwood, Marty Stuart, Mary Chapin Carpenter, June Carter Cash and the evening's house band, the Mavericks), the roster also encompassed rock (Isaak, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, and satellite performances from U2, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan), gospel (the Fairfield Four) and even rap(Wyclef Jean).

"[Producer] Rick Rubin called me," explained Jean, who wore a cowboy hat for the occasion. "He know that I'm eclectic, and I listen to hip-hop as well as I listen to country, classical, whatever. I was turned onto Johnny Cash the short time I spent in college. His style of being the Man in Black . . . you know, the rebel vibe of country, you know what I'm saying? But with lyrics and a style of storytelling which is the same thing we do in rap music. He didn't compromise his lyrics." Appropriately enough, Jean's selection for the evening was "Delia's Gone," a grim murder ballad that Cash last recorded on his 1994 Rubin-produced album, American Recordings.

Among the evening's other stand-out performances were Nelson and Crow's show-opening "Jackson," Kristofferson's "Ballad of Ira Hayes," Harris, Crow and Carpenter's "Flesh & Blood" and June Carter Cash's fragile delivery of her own composition, "Ring of Fire," which she said was written when she first fell in love with Johnny. No less effecting were Dylan's band-backed "Train of Love" and Springsteen's intimate "Give My Love to Rose," but U2's spooky, ambient version of "Don't Take Your Guns to Town" was the most interesting of the three satellite performances.

Cash spent most of the evening in his dressing room watching the performance on a monitor. "I know right now, he's rockin' and reelin'," said Nelson when asked how his friend was reacting to the evening. "I talked to him in the dressing room, and there's so many things happening at once, I'm sure he's awestruck and overwhelmed by it all."

Cash did look a little overwhelmed when he finally took the stage with his son John Carter Cash, original "Tennessee Two" bass player Marshall Grant, veteran rockabilly drummer W.S. Holland and boogie-woogie piano player Earl Poole Ball, but he maintained remarkable poise even during his copious thank yous to friends and family. It was not until his wife June walked out and took his hand during "I Walk the Line," shortly followed by Willie and the rest of the gang, that the Man in Black seemed at a genuine loss. Long before they all got to the line "You give me cause for love that I can't hide," Cash had given up any pretense of trying.

An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash airs Sunday, April 18 at 8 p.m. EST on TNT.

RICHARD SKANSE(April 7, 1999)