When you think of a musical tribute act, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a garish jumpsuit-clad Elvis impersonator. Maybe after that a heavily made-up imitation Cher, or Wayne Newton.
But for Shawn Barker, telling the story of Johnny Cash onstage is a musical calling and vocation.
“I’ve seen a lot of people do tributes,” Barker said by Zoom recently. “They’re almost tongue in cheek, kind of poking fun at the person.”
For two decades, Barker has taken a different approach.
“I personally try to do it as an actual, respectful, high quality show. We’re doing a musical history of Johnny Cash’s career,” Barker explained.
The show features a live band and includes songs from Cash’s days at Sun Records all the way up to the 1990s and his critically-acclaimed American Recordings albums, which featured old ballads and country standards as well as stripped-down acoustic reworkings of songs by Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, and Depeche Mode. Barker said the newer songs give him an opportunity to take some liberties with the material, “blending the original versions that Depeche Mode or Soundgarden did with the version that Cash did,” he explained.
But mostly, “The Main In Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash” is a recreation of what it might have been like to be in the audience at one of the legendary singer’s classic shows. This, despite not having a lot to work with when it comes to visual research.
“Unlike somebody like Elvis, or somebody like Elton John… there’s not as much live footage of Johnny Cash as you might think,” Barker said. There’s his television show, and the 1969 San Quentin concert which was filmed, Barker said, but concert footage of Cash in action is otherwise hard to come by.
Nevertheless, Barker holds the guitar like he means it. And like Cash, he grew up with church music. In his voice, there’s even a little of the tremor that Cash had. Barker feels each show is an opportunity to get closer to the man.
“When you’re doing a tribute to anybody… it’s always a work in progress,” Barker said, “because you’re not that person. There’s always room for improvement."
Asked whether he’s worried that an AI version of Cash may someday take the place of performers like him, Barker demurred. “I think there’s always going to be that human interaction for live music. People are always going to want that.”
Want that, they do. Barker’s show in New Braunfels on January 30 is already sold out, but he’s performing as “The Man In Black” in Dallas tonight, and at the Doesey Doe in The Woodlands on Friday, Jan. 31, before moving into Oklahoma and Florida in February.
